Week ending 10/27/2013.
Fear: I can't sleep between 4:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. Why? Night Terrors. Often, outright hallucinations, usually about clothing, towels, and curtains. Patterns turn into faces, people in pictures move, a crumpled pair of jeans is really a demon. The truth is, for that hour, I watch the clock like a fucking maniac, because at 5:00 I will be safe again. Nothing can get me at 5:00 a.m.
Disgust: A frequent customer (who...does not have a rockin' body) came out of the fitting room on Tuesday wearing only her sweatshirt, her underwear, and a pair of cowboy boots she was trying on. She wanted to try other sizes in the boots. So she bent over to read box sizes and exchange between the sizes. Pink granny panties, FYI.
Sadness: A teenager called me middle-aged. She was talking to me and two other ladies. We are 34, 31, and 49 years old. The teenager was talking about technology, and said, "Middle-aged people like you all just didn't grow up with it like we did." I...don't want to be one of those women who can't face her age, but sometimes reminders creep up on me that I'm not exactly young anymore and that I need to get going with my life.
Anger: I have a plane ticket from Seattle to home. Not one from home to Seattle, though. Because at the time when I had just enough money for one ticket, the flights there numbered twenty and the flights back numbered five. I thought, I'd better secure a seat on one of those five planes and I'll have the money for one of the outgoing planes soon. Nope! That was June. Every time I have the money something happens. Is it a sign? I've never been on a vacation, not really, especially one on my own. I want this so badly.
Happiness: A real phone! With texting! I was tired of all these people around me, who have no jobs, who steal and sell other people's possessions for drug money, having phones worth hundreds of dollars while I had a five-year-old flip phone. So, I sucked it up and got a Smartphone. It isn't the greatest one out there, but it will do and it will do everything theirs will do without the hefty $600 or so price. How do they even get these phones? Whatever, it doesn't matter because now I have a real phone, too!
Surprise: The cat lady asked me to babysit her cats again while she's on vacation for a week. She pays well. This is at a time when I'm a little stretched, monetarily, and her offer was just amazing timing. She...always seems to make these offers at the exact time I need a little extra cash. It gives me pause.
Random Fact: If you want to kill me, lock me in a room with only canned food and an electric can opener. I do not understand how to work them. My mother once threw away all the manual can openers and that night we had to go buy a new one so I could open cans when no one else was home.
October 28, 2013
October 24, 2013
The Short, Short Version #1
Week ending 10/20/2013.
Yes, I end weeks on Sunday. Because Sunday is the last day of the week, not the first.
Fear: My father ran into a wall on Saturday and cut his head open. There were times on Sunday where we would ask him a question and he would just stare at us for a minute or so, then finally answer. I told my mom he could have a concussion, or even have brought on another stroke somehow. Did she take him to the ER? Nope. She let him sleep, a lot, for the next few days. Sleep.
Disgust: My nephew and my sister often don't flush the toilet. After doing #2. Because they do #2 before taking a shower, and they can't wait the thirty seconds it will take for the commode to stop interfering with the water. I imagine them jumping - leaping - from the toilet to the shower because they can't lose thirty seconds. Then they forget they did #2, and whoever goes in next has to take care of that.
Sadness: I cried and cried the day I thought for certain we were finally going to have to take the cat the Humane Society. After going for over a week without peeing on the steps, he suddenly peed on every one of them. Thursday morning I got up and bawled in the recliner, clutching the cat, and it was an ugly, snotty, hitching, long sobbing session. But he's still here.
Anger: So, I'm a homebody. I like to read, write, play video games, surf the net, etc. I'm quiet and introverted and that's what I enjoy and what boils my blood is when people make snide comments about my hobbies. The other day, Fucking Janet was talking to a friend of hers who had made a cute scarf after seeing how-to on Pinterest. So Fucking Janet asked me, "Don't you go on Pinterest?" Yes. So she said, "Well, I don't have time to just sit in front of my computer doing nothing." I told her lots of people do it from their phone and that a friend of ours who has three jobs is on there way more than I am. Janet just rolled her eyes and asked who has time to do nothing like that? Then later, our boss and her boss told Janet they go on Pinterest, and guess who asked me to help her set up an account and who denied that she ever made fun of it when I called her out on being two-faced?
Happiness: (There was a long, depressing silence as I thought hard about this.) The cat is still here. (Another pause as I decide there must be something else.) (Oh!) I finally bought the dry erase board / cork board combo I've been wanting at the local department store. I have monthly, weekly, and daily goals. One monthly goal is reading at least 5 books (it is thusly underlined on the dry erase board). Weekly goals include writing so many pages, reading the Profile in the New Yorker, summarizing reading notes in my journal. A particular daily goal is making sure I log into Facebook. Once.
Surprise: My eighteen-year-old niece wants a sex-change operation. That's fine by me, whatever makes her comfortable in her own skin. But, if you are going to reinvent yourself, and you can choose any name in the world, why...Brandon?
Yes, I end weeks on Sunday. Because Sunday is the last day of the week, not the first.
Fear: My father ran into a wall on Saturday and cut his head open. There were times on Sunday where we would ask him a question and he would just stare at us for a minute or so, then finally answer. I told my mom he could have a concussion, or even have brought on another stroke somehow. Did she take him to the ER? Nope. She let him sleep, a lot, for the next few days. Sleep.
Disgust: My nephew and my sister often don't flush the toilet. After doing #2. Because they do #2 before taking a shower, and they can't wait the thirty seconds it will take for the commode to stop interfering with the water. I imagine them jumping - leaping - from the toilet to the shower because they can't lose thirty seconds. Then they forget they did #2, and whoever goes in next has to take care of that.
Sadness: I cried and cried the day I thought for certain we were finally going to have to take the cat the Humane Society. After going for over a week without peeing on the steps, he suddenly peed on every one of them. Thursday morning I got up and bawled in the recliner, clutching the cat, and it was an ugly, snotty, hitching, long sobbing session. But he's still here.
Anger: So, I'm a homebody. I like to read, write, play video games, surf the net, etc. I'm quiet and introverted and that's what I enjoy and what boils my blood is when people make snide comments about my hobbies. The other day, Fucking Janet was talking to a friend of hers who had made a cute scarf after seeing how-to on Pinterest. So Fucking Janet asked me, "Don't you go on Pinterest?" Yes. So she said, "Well, I don't have time to just sit in front of my computer doing nothing." I told her lots of people do it from their phone and that a friend of ours who has three jobs is on there way more than I am. Janet just rolled her eyes and asked who has time to do nothing like that? Then later, our boss and her boss told Janet they go on Pinterest, and guess who asked me to help her set up an account and who denied that she ever made fun of it when I called her out on being two-faced?
Happiness: (There was a long, depressing silence as I thought hard about this.) The cat is still here. (Another pause as I decide there must be something else.) (Oh!) I finally bought the dry erase board / cork board combo I've been wanting at the local department store. I have monthly, weekly, and daily goals. One monthly goal is reading at least 5 books (it is thusly underlined on the dry erase board). Weekly goals include writing so many pages, reading the Profile in the New Yorker, summarizing reading notes in my journal. A particular daily goal is making sure I log into Facebook. Once.
Surprise: My eighteen-year-old niece wants a sex-change operation. That's fine by me, whatever makes her comfortable in her own skin. But, if you are going to reinvent yourself, and you can choose any name in the world, why...Brandon?
September 9, 2013
Furry Babies
I just got back from taking the cat to the vet. He has lost a ton of weight, he has no energy, he keeps peeing all over the stairs (on every single step), and he cannot get enough to eat. We had called a vet a few weeks ago but couldn't afford the up-front payment they wanted to even look at him. They told us that they wouldn't even waste their time with an office visit because it wouldn't tell them anything, and that we would need to drop him off and have him boarded while they ran all of the tests they wanted to run. Just to board him was, like, $300. And they wouldn't accept payment plans and that didn't even include follow-up or treatment, etc.
So I was devastated, because particularly with my father's stroke and all the extra expenses that has brought, I didn't have the money to just drop the cat off and not even know how much more they would be charging me before I could have him back. So we tried to deal with the problems and steal ourselves up for possibly having to put him down.
Then a co-worker found a new vet for her own pets and recommended this woman to me. The office visit was only $25 and they agreed to see him ASAP. She was very nice and took me right in to the office even though I was almost an hour early. She looked him over, asked a few questions, drew some blood, explained the most likely problems (diabetes and hyperthyroid), and explained the most likely treatments. All of that for half of the amount the other vet wanted to even LOOK at him.
The new vet called the cat an old man before he was even out of the carrier and that was funny. He is an old man. She could immediately see he is developing cataracts. He is skinny and kind of reedy but she said that's not entirely uncommon in elder cats. She told me he shouldn't eat wet food, but if that's all he'll eat then that's that. I've been told by multiple vets a variety of things, from no dry food to no wet food to always mix them, so at this point I'm just going to feed him what he'll eat. Which is, actually, a can of wet food mixed with handful of dry food.
She told me it is probably diabetes based on the description of his peeing on the carpet and the amount of pee (Lord! does he pee buckets). She said the hyperthyroid is usually accompanied by vomiting and diarrhea, and he has neither. It could be a mixture of his thyroid and diabetes, though.
The only time the new vet made me a little angry was when she asked me if the cat had problems with fleas. My cat has never had fleas. She looked doubtful, like she thought I was lying, and pointed out that he had several scabs where it looked like he had been biting himself "to death." I told her he had always had fall allergies and that my previous vet told me the past few summers and falls had been very bad for....
And here she interrupted me to say, "Fleas, yeah." And I was really annoyed, and said, "No, bad for allergies." She just kind of shrugged, as if to say I was kidding myself or possibly lying to her. She kept combing him and explaining what happens when cats get fleas and I was like, have you found any evidence of fleas yet? And guess what? She never did find any evidence of fleas. Ever.
So she drew blood and that was it. She had me leave the room while she drew the blood and when I came back she exclaimed, "When we flipped him over he was bald on his belly! Is that recent, too?" I told her he had been bald since he was neutered eleven years ago. She just kind of furrowed her brow and said, "Hmmm, really?" but not in a kind of fun surprised way, but like I was lying again. Because it would be further evidence of him scratching his fleas, you know?
But overall I'm pleased. He will most likely need insulin shots twice a day. She told me it would be kind of expensive each month and I told her that it wasn't the fact that I needed to pay for medication/food/etc. but that the other vet wanted a huge amount up-front and all at once. If I have to pay $50 a month for some special medicine that's fine. But $300-$500 minimum without knowledge of what they were going to do or when they would do it or if I could get my cat back if I couldn't pay for what they did behind my back? That's what I couldn't afford.
So I was devastated, because particularly with my father's stroke and all the extra expenses that has brought, I didn't have the money to just drop the cat off and not even know how much more they would be charging me before I could have him back. So we tried to deal with the problems and steal ourselves up for possibly having to put him down.
Then a co-worker found a new vet for her own pets and recommended this woman to me. The office visit was only $25 and they agreed to see him ASAP. She was very nice and took me right in to the office even though I was almost an hour early. She looked him over, asked a few questions, drew some blood, explained the most likely problems (diabetes and hyperthyroid), and explained the most likely treatments. All of that for half of the amount the other vet wanted to even LOOK at him.
The new vet called the cat an old man before he was even out of the carrier and that was funny. He is an old man. She could immediately see he is developing cataracts. He is skinny and kind of reedy but she said that's not entirely uncommon in elder cats. She told me he shouldn't eat wet food, but if that's all he'll eat then that's that. I've been told by multiple vets a variety of things, from no dry food to no wet food to always mix them, so at this point I'm just going to feed him what he'll eat. Which is, actually, a can of wet food mixed with handful of dry food.
She told me it is probably diabetes based on the description of his peeing on the carpet and the amount of pee (Lord! does he pee buckets). She said the hyperthyroid is usually accompanied by vomiting and diarrhea, and he has neither. It could be a mixture of his thyroid and diabetes, though.
The only time the new vet made me a little angry was when she asked me if the cat had problems with fleas. My cat has never had fleas. She looked doubtful, like she thought I was lying, and pointed out that he had several scabs where it looked like he had been biting himself "to death." I told her he had always had fall allergies and that my previous vet told me the past few summers and falls had been very bad for....
And here she interrupted me to say, "Fleas, yeah." And I was really annoyed, and said, "No, bad for allergies." She just kind of shrugged, as if to say I was kidding myself or possibly lying to her. She kept combing him and explaining what happens when cats get fleas and I was like, have you found any evidence of fleas yet? And guess what? She never did find any evidence of fleas. Ever.
So she drew blood and that was it. She had me leave the room while she drew the blood and when I came back she exclaimed, "When we flipped him over he was bald on his belly! Is that recent, too?" I told her he had been bald since he was neutered eleven years ago. She just kind of furrowed her brow and said, "Hmmm, really?" but not in a kind of fun surprised way, but like I was lying again. Because it would be further evidence of him scratching his fleas, you know?
But overall I'm pleased. He will most likely need insulin shots twice a day. She told me it would be kind of expensive each month and I told her that it wasn't the fact that I needed to pay for medication/food/etc. but that the other vet wanted a huge amount up-front and all at once. If I have to pay $50 a month for some special medicine that's fine. But $300-$500 minimum without knowledge of what they were going to do or when they would do it or if I could get my cat back if I couldn't pay for what they did behind my back? That's what I couldn't afford.
July 31, 2013
Patience
Boy, are we going to learn patience.
My father was moved to a regular room last night. I got out of work late and had to go the grocery store afterward, so I called him at about 11:00 p.m. to see how he was doing. He kept asking me to bring him his computer and some toilet paper. I tried to explain that he couldn't have his computer (a desktop) because there was nowhere to put his huge tower. I didn't even comment on the toilet paper. I explained that we would see about finding him a laptop. He asked me if I was on my way with it and I told him I wouldn't be able to come see him until the next day. He said okay, said "I love you," and hung up.
So today....
We drove to the hospital. We had a laptop with a mouse, because I knew he wouldn't be able to use the laptop's scrolling mouse. That was the first thing he asked about when we came in. "Where's my computer?" We explained that we had called the hospital to ask them if he could have his desktop and of course they had said no, but they said he could have a laptop. He asked why he couldn't have a desktop. We explained, again, that there was nowhere to put the tower because it was bulky and if they needed to move it quickly they wouldn't be able to. He said they could put it on the table, the rolling table that he eats off of and then they could just roll it away. We told him that wasn't an option and he looked like he was going to cry. He stared off into space and almost started crying.
We tried to show him how to use the laptop. He couldn't figure out where the keyboard was, even when I would point to it. He just kept asking me how he was supposed to find the 'H' and 'I' keys when he didn't know where they were. He just wanted to type 'HI.' I had tried to show him how to turn it on and how to use the mouse, but the mouse was too fast and he couldn't get it to move slowly and so finally he just said, "Why can't you just get me to my poker? There's no reason you can't do it for me." So I did it, but he couldn't even type the word 'HI.' I asked him what he would do if I wasn't there to get him to his poker and he couldn't answer. So, the laptop came right back home with us.
Then he complained, loudly and often, about the fact that the nurse told him she would bring him a roast beef sandwich, and he was expecting a sandwich from Arby's and what they brought was an open-faced roast beef sandwich on white bread. Then he started asking us to bring him some food, and when we explained that we couldn't because his diet is restricted, he started accusing us of just not wanting to be bothered with doing something for him, and calling us lazy, and explaining to us how easy it would be and that we needed to just go do it. We spent an entire two hours arguing this point with him.
Then we ordered him some fish for dinner. He actually ate that fairly well, but did complain that it wasn't from Long John Silvers.
As we were leaving, he asked us if we were going to bring him some real food when we come back tomorrow. We told him we'd ask the doctor what we might be able to bring him and he said he knew we wouldn't really bring him anything. We just told him we loved him and left.
Earlier this week, Fucking Janet (her new official name) made a comment about how if it was her dad, she'd be there every minute of every day and no job or amount of money or whatever would stop her. But you know what? It was really hard being there today. It was harder being there. Because he was frustrating, and he can't help it, but sometimes he was rude to us and to the nurse and it was hard not to snap at him a little. And because he doesn't understand what's happened, and because he thinks he's been there for months, and because watching him trying move the mouse or type the word 'HI' was really sad.
What if he's like this forever? What if he will never again be able to even push a button? My mother said with physical therapy his motor skills will come back, but what about his memory? He told us the same story about the Arby's sandwich several times today, each time like he was telling it for the first time. He couldn't remember what shrimp were called. He couldn't remember the word 'biscuit.' He kept calling my niece by my name. He kept asking where I had gone.
I keep trying not to ask that question back.
My father was moved to a regular room last night. I got out of work late and had to go the grocery store afterward, so I called him at about 11:00 p.m. to see how he was doing. He kept asking me to bring him his computer and some toilet paper. I tried to explain that he couldn't have his computer (a desktop) because there was nowhere to put his huge tower. I didn't even comment on the toilet paper. I explained that we would see about finding him a laptop. He asked me if I was on my way with it and I told him I wouldn't be able to come see him until the next day. He said okay, said "I love you," and hung up.
So today....
We drove to the hospital. We had a laptop with a mouse, because I knew he wouldn't be able to use the laptop's scrolling mouse. That was the first thing he asked about when we came in. "Where's my computer?" We explained that we had called the hospital to ask them if he could have his desktop and of course they had said no, but they said he could have a laptop. He asked why he couldn't have a desktop. We explained, again, that there was nowhere to put the tower because it was bulky and if they needed to move it quickly they wouldn't be able to. He said they could put it on the table, the rolling table that he eats off of and then they could just roll it away. We told him that wasn't an option and he looked like he was going to cry. He stared off into space and almost started crying.
We tried to show him how to use the laptop. He couldn't figure out where the keyboard was, even when I would point to it. He just kept asking me how he was supposed to find the 'H' and 'I' keys when he didn't know where they were. He just wanted to type 'HI.' I had tried to show him how to turn it on and how to use the mouse, but the mouse was too fast and he couldn't get it to move slowly and so finally he just said, "Why can't you just get me to my poker? There's no reason you can't do it for me." So I did it, but he couldn't even type the word 'HI.' I asked him what he would do if I wasn't there to get him to his poker and he couldn't answer. So, the laptop came right back home with us.
Then he complained, loudly and often, about the fact that the nurse told him she would bring him a roast beef sandwich, and he was expecting a sandwich from Arby's and what they brought was an open-faced roast beef sandwich on white bread. Then he started asking us to bring him some food, and when we explained that we couldn't because his diet is restricted, he started accusing us of just not wanting to be bothered with doing something for him, and calling us lazy, and explaining to us how easy it would be and that we needed to just go do it. We spent an entire two hours arguing this point with him.
Then we ordered him some fish for dinner. He actually ate that fairly well, but did complain that it wasn't from Long John Silvers.
As we were leaving, he asked us if we were going to bring him some real food when we come back tomorrow. We told him we'd ask the doctor what we might be able to bring him and he said he knew we wouldn't really bring him anything. We just told him we loved him and left.
Earlier this week, Fucking Janet (her new official name) made a comment about how if it was her dad, she'd be there every minute of every day and no job or amount of money or whatever would stop her. But you know what? It was really hard being there today. It was harder being there. Because he was frustrating, and he can't help it, but sometimes he was rude to us and to the nurse and it was hard not to snap at him a little. And because he doesn't understand what's happened, and because he thinks he's been there for months, and because watching him trying move the mouse or type the word 'HI' was really sad.
What if he's like this forever? What if he will never again be able to even push a button? My mother said with physical therapy his motor skills will come back, but what about his memory? He told us the same story about the Arby's sandwich several times today, each time like he was telling it for the first time. He couldn't remember what shrimp were called. He couldn't remember the word 'biscuit.' He kept calling my niece by my name. He kept asking where I had gone.
I keep trying not to ask that question back.
July 27, 2013
Hospital Etiquette
Lesson #1 -
It isn't about you.
I went to see my father today. Yesterday, at about 1:00 p.m., he went to get in his car and felt sick, then realized he could not get back into the house and laid down in the back seat. A neighbor saw him and came to tell my mom there was something wrong. He'd had a stroke.
He was transferred to a bigger hospital. I drove my mom and sister down to see him in the neural critical care unit. He was somewhat responsive. He threw up several times. We asked for a popsicle and that seemed to make him feel better. He slept and we just kind of talked quietly amongst ourselves and read.
Then, a woman who has only just rekindled a relationship with my mother decided she HAD to come to the hospital. This is the wife of the brother of my mother's ex-husband. Yeah. And when my sister was in the hospital earlier this year, this woman realized she knew my sister, that she remembered her from when my sister was little, and wanted to get back in touch with my family.
Fine. That's fine. But now is not the time to try to be the center of attention. When she called us, we were at the hospital, and when she asked my mother if she could come my mother told her yes. I was in the background mouthing to my mother to say "no" because my father was not going to want her there right now. After my mother hung up, she asked my father if it was okay and he said, "As long as she doesn't talk too much."
Enter this woman. Talking loudly. Talking about things that we couldn't care less about. Some girl's wedding. Some picnic. Some fight she was having with someone. LOUDLY. Her husband sat down in a rolling chair and accidentally went flying, knocking into my father's IV pole.
In the middle of this, my father suddenly said, "I want to be alone." I knew this would happen. Then he starting telling the nurse he wanted to sit on the commode, so he could be alone. The nurse told him he didn't need to sit on the commode because he needed to use the bed pan, but I understood that "the commode" at home would be a place he would escape to where no one would bother him. So pretty much right after they got there we all had to leave.
Then we got downstairs and I said I was going to go get my car and bring it around because it was on the third floor of the parking garage. This woman said, "I don't understand why." I was like, "What part of that is confusing?" "You can't bring it here." (At that very moment we were standing near the elevators kind of far from the entrance.) "By the time I get to the parking garage, get up three flights of stairs, and pay for parking you all will be right there at the entrance and it will be convenient for everyone." "Well, I just don't understand. Are you parked in the green garage? So are we." "Yes, that's where I'm parked, and I just want to go get the car." "Well, wait, well, why?" And at that I just walked away.
BECAUSE I WANT TO AND I'M 34 YEARS OLD. And because it isn't about you. And I don't know you. And because I'm pissed that you upset my father and he asked everyone to leave.
Moral: Be the help someone needs, not the help YOU want to be.
It isn't about you.
I went to see my father today. Yesterday, at about 1:00 p.m., he went to get in his car and felt sick, then realized he could not get back into the house and laid down in the back seat. A neighbor saw him and came to tell my mom there was something wrong. He'd had a stroke.
He was transferred to a bigger hospital. I drove my mom and sister down to see him in the neural critical care unit. He was somewhat responsive. He threw up several times. We asked for a popsicle and that seemed to make him feel better. He slept and we just kind of talked quietly amongst ourselves and read.
Then, a woman who has only just rekindled a relationship with my mother decided she HAD to come to the hospital. This is the wife of the brother of my mother's ex-husband. Yeah. And when my sister was in the hospital earlier this year, this woman realized she knew my sister, that she remembered her from when my sister was little, and wanted to get back in touch with my family.
Fine. That's fine. But now is not the time to try to be the center of attention. When she called us, we were at the hospital, and when she asked my mother if she could come my mother told her yes. I was in the background mouthing to my mother to say "no" because my father was not going to want her there right now. After my mother hung up, she asked my father if it was okay and he said, "As long as she doesn't talk too much."
Enter this woman. Talking loudly. Talking about things that we couldn't care less about. Some girl's wedding. Some picnic. Some fight she was having with someone. LOUDLY. Her husband sat down in a rolling chair and accidentally went flying, knocking into my father's IV pole.
In the middle of this, my father suddenly said, "I want to be alone." I knew this would happen. Then he starting telling the nurse he wanted to sit on the commode, so he could be alone. The nurse told him he didn't need to sit on the commode because he needed to use the bed pan, but I understood that "the commode" at home would be a place he would escape to where no one would bother him. So pretty much right after they got there we all had to leave.
Then we got downstairs and I said I was going to go get my car and bring it around because it was on the third floor of the parking garage. This woman said, "I don't understand why." I was like, "What part of that is confusing?" "You can't bring it here." (At that very moment we were standing near the elevators kind of far from the entrance.) "By the time I get to the parking garage, get up three flights of stairs, and pay for parking you all will be right there at the entrance and it will be convenient for everyone." "Well, I just don't understand. Are you parked in the green garage? So are we." "Yes, that's where I'm parked, and I just want to go get the car." "Well, wait, well, why?" And at that I just walked away.
BECAUSE I WANT TO AND I'M 34 YEARS OLD. And because it isn't about you. And I don't know you. And because I'm pissed that you upset my father and he asked everyone to leave.
Moral: Be the help someone needs, not the help YOU want to be.
July 22, 2013
Quick News from My Life
In a nutshell: One of my nieces (22) gave birth to a baby girl. My nephew (18) (with whom I've had quite a troubled past) moved to Missouri on a whim last week. He was supposed to be going on a two-week vacation with his girlfriend but instead he decided to never come back. For now. Another of my nieces (20) found out this morning she is pregnant.
I'm going to choose to believe this is a blessing, this latest pregnancy. Earlier this year, my sister was hospitalized with Spinal Meningitis due to an infection near her spinal cord that allowed the virus to enter her bloodstream. The infection spread to her brain. After six weeks of intense antibiotics and surgeries the Meningitis cleared up and she was able to go home.
She has permanent brain damage affecting her short-term and long-term memory. She suddenly can't remember what she was doing (which can be dangerous if she's cooking or even showering). She can't remember what she was saying. She can't remember her childhood. The doctor says her short-term memory will probably right itself. But her long-term memory may be gone forever.
It has also been recommended that she have plastic surgery to repair the hole in her back causing bacteria access to her spinal cord. If she does so, she will have to enter a nursing home for six weeks, and she will not be allowed to sit up for the first four weeks. If she does so, it will at least cut the chances that something as life-threatening could happen again as easily. If she does not do this, infections will continue to weaken her immune system. She is, of course, refusing to have this surgery.
So, time is slipping away. Memories are slipping away. Maybe a little bit of happiness is what she needs, and maybe a grandchild will bring her some happiness. I'm choosing to believe this. Her other daughter (18 this week) will most likely never have children, so this may be my sister's one shot at ever seeing her grandchildren. Maybe, knowing that a baby is on the way, one she'll want to watch grow up, maybe she'll change her mind about having the surgery. I'm choosing to hope for this.
I'm going to choose to believe this is a blessing, this latest pregnancy. Earlier this year, my sister was hospitalized with Spinal Meningitis due to an infection near her spinal cord that allowed the virus to enter her bloodstream. The infection spread to her brain. After six weeks of intense antibiotics and surgeries the Meningitis cleared up and she was able to go home.
She has permanent brain damage affecting her short-term and long-term memory. She suddenly can't remember what she was doing (which can be dangerous if she's cooking or even showering). She can't remember what she was saying. She can't remember her childhood. The doctor says her short-term memory will probably right itself. But her long-term memory may be gone forever.
It has also been recommended that she have plastic surgery to repair the hole in her back causing bacteria access to her spinal cord. If she does so, she will have to enter a nursing home for six weeks, and she will not be allowed to sit up for the first four weeks. If she does so, it will at least cut the chances that something as life-threatening could happen again as easily. If she does not do this, infections will continue to weaken her immune system. She is, of course, refusing to have this surgery.
So, time is slipping away. Memories are slipping away. Maybe a little bit of happiness is what she needs, and maybe a grandchild will bring her some happiness. I'm choosing to believe this. Her other daughter (18 this week) will most likely never have children, so this may be my sister's one shot at ever seeing her grandchildren. Maybe, knowing that a baby is on the way, one she'll want to watch grow up, maybe she'll change her mind about having the surgery. I'm choosing to hope for this.
May 23, 2013
"Fitch, Please"
Ellen said that on her show when she was taking Abercrombie and Fitch to task for the comments made by CEO Mike Jeffries. If you don't know, he said there are certain people who shouldn't wear A&F clothing and made distinctions between "cool" and "uncool" kids, implying anyone above a certain size isn't "cool."
So, obviously, this guy's kind of a dick. Skinny does not equal cool. A LOT of athletes are not "cool" for the pure reason that they, often, are also complete dicks. Not all of them, I don't want to be making any grand generalizations here. But most people have a particular image of what the "cool" kids were like in their high school days and for most people, cheerleaders, athletes, etc. were not friendly or, indeed, "cool."
But I digress, because actually, I wanted to give props to an argument I read in the comments section of one particular online article. Someone made the "joke" that they were going to boycott Lane Bryant because they didn't carry extra-small clothing. Then they pointed out that if A&F didn't want to market toward a certain demographic they didn't have to because, hello, capitalism. And using this logic, we can make the argument that Lane Bryant is also "exclusionary" and, therefore, "discriminatory." And while I don't know if I agree completely, that's a totally logical, intelligent argument.
Do I shop at A&F? No, it's way too expensive and the employees have always been complete dicks to me when I walk in. Because they assume I'm not their demographic. (Which, while I am a bit older than their target consumer, I am also almost universally an XS - S in clothing.) But do I agree that they should expand their clothing sizes so "everyone" can fit their clothing? NOPE. Here's why: that's impossible.
I work in a clothing store, as you know. Our "core" sizes start at a junior XS (size 0) and run to a junior XXL (roughly size 17/18). Then we have our "plus" sizes which start at 14 and run to 24. For the most part, we do not have the same clothing on both sides. It is getting better, because one of our biggest customer complaints is finding something on "the other side."
But it isn't as simple as just making a shirt bigger and bigger. A lot of fashion designers say that for "plus" sized women clothing has to be re-imagined, re-shaped, etc. because their shapes are just plain different than the average shape of a woman who wears a small. Sometimes, when our store does have the same shirt on both sides, it might be more fitted in the "core" sizes but have a band at the bottom in the "plus" sizes. This is because for many "plus" women, bands at the bottom prevent the shirt from just hanging and looking sloppy, or exposing their stomachs.
But I also can't tell you how many times we have a woman who is a size, say, 28 come in and complain to us about our store not catering to her size. I don't know what to tell these women because most stores can't carry every size conceivable. So that's why I'm not totally on the bandwagon about A&F needing to expand its sizes. Could their CEO have made more intelligent comments? Absolutely. He could have just talked about the image for their company being young athletes or something. Which is fine. Tommy Hilfiger had a particular image for his company: yuppies. He was actually aghast when rappers started wearing his clothing and said that if he'd known that was the image his company would be associated with, he wouldn't have ever gone into business. Yeah, a lot of rich people say stupid things, huh?
And to the people who say that if you want to fit into A&F clothing you should go on a diet: you CAN'T be serious. It IS NOT that simple for most overweight people. A lot of people are overweight because they eat unhealthy food, and a lot of it, sure. But a lot of people are also overweight because they have some kind of injury that prevents them from getting proper exercise, or they have a health condition, or their medication makes them gain weight, ETC.
By the way, right now we have a woman working in our store who is too small for most of our clothing. She takes a lot of abuse at the hands of customers (and, sometimes, employees who need to get over their own self-image problems because they're a medium and she makes them feel "fat"). She holds her own pretty well, pointing out that she has an equally hard time when she's forced to buy kids clothes and then she's at the mall and realizes the 10-year-old girl next to her is wearing the same shirt. But the point is most clothes aren't tailored to her body-type either, and she'd gladly trade with the medium-sized employee. But it also isn't as simple as eating more food. Just as it isn't a simple as eating less food.
So, as mean as this sounds, to the people boycotting A&F because they need to expand their clothing sizes: get over it. Shop somewhere else. If you're boycotting them because their CEO is a bully, more power to you, continue with your peaceful protests. Teach your children that the image A&F sends is one that condones bullying and discrimination. Or, grow a spine and tell your children NO when they want to shop there. (Too many times I hear parents say, "she won't wear anything that isn't A&F. It's so expensive but I don't know what to do." And I want to scream, "Tell her NO.") But they don't have to carry clothing to suit everyone's needs. They do need to reevaluate their values, though.
P.S. Yesterday I had a customer who saw a shirt in the "plus" section and asked if it was in "regular girl" sizes. I corrected her, right there, and said, "You mean in the junior sizes?" She kind of stared at me for a second but then she apologized. First of all, she was a small on top and a size 3/4 for bottoms. That is, in no way on Earth, "regular." The average size is between 11-14. I know not only because I read that in an article recently but also because those are the sizes we sell out of first. We also have to correct customers who say, "normal girls sizes," "real girl sizes," and others. I don't expect them to know that our store is divided into "juniors" and "womens" sizes, but I do expect them to say something more like, "do you have this in a medium" or "do you have this in my size?"
So, obviously, this guy's kind of a dick. Skinny does not equal cool. A LOT of athletes are not "cool" for the pure reason that they, often, are also complete dicks. Not all of them, I don't want to be making any grand generalizations here. But most people have a particular image of what the "cool" kids were like in their high school days and for most people, cheerleaders, athletes, etc. were not friendly or, indeed, "cool."
But I digress, because actually, I wanted to give props to an argument I read in the comments section of one particular online article. Someone made the "joke" that they were going to boycott Lane Bryant because they didn't carry extra-small clothing. Then they pointed out that if A&F didn't want to market toward a certain demographic they didn't have to because, hello, capitalism. And using this logic, we can make the argument that Lane Bryant is also "exclusionary" and, therefore, "discriminatory." And while I don't know if I agree completely, that's a totally logical, intelligent argument.
Do I shop at A&F? No, it's way too expensive and the employees have always been complete dicks to me when I walk in. Because they assume I'm not their demographic. (Which, while I am a bit older than their target consumer, I am also almost universally an XS - S in clothing.) But do I agree that they should expand their clothing sizes so "everyone" can fit their clothing? NOPE. Here's why: that's impossible.
I work in a clothing store, as you know. Our "core" sizes start at a junior XS (size 0) and run to a junior XXL (roughly size 17/18). Then we have our "plus" sizes which start at 14 and run to 24. For the most part, we do not have the same clothing on both sides. It is getting better, because one of our biggest customer complaints is finding something on "the other side."
But it isn't as simple as just making a shirt bigger and bigger. A lot of fashion designers say that for "plus" sized women clothing has to be re-imagined, re-shaped, etc. because their shapes are just plain different than the average shape of a woman who wears a small. Sometimes, when our store does have the same shirt on both sides, it might be more fitted in the "core" sizes but have a band at the bottom in the "plus" sizes. This is because for many "plus" women, bands at the bottom prevent the shirt from just hanging and looking sloppy, or exposing their stomachs.
But I also can't tell you how many times we have a woman who is a size, say, 28 come in and complain to us about our store not catering to her size. I don't know what to tell these women because most stores can't carry every size conceivable. So that's why I'm not totally on the bandwagon about A&F needing to expand its sizes. Could their CEO have made more intelligent comments? Absolutely. He could have just talked about the image for their company being young athletes or something. Which is fine. Tommy Hilfiger had a particular image for his company: yuppies. He was actually aghast when rappers started wearing his clothing and said that if he'd known that was the image his company would be associated with, he wouldn't have ever gone into business. Yeah, a lot of rich people say stupid things, huh?
And to the people who say that if you want to fit into A&F clothing you should go on a diet: you CAN'T be serious. It IS NOT that simple for most overweight people. A lot of people are overweight because they eat unhealthy food, and a lot of it, sure. But a lot of people are also overweight because they have some kind of injury that prevents them from getting proper exercise, or they have a health condition, or their medication makes them gain weight, ETC.
By the way, right now we have a woman working in our store who is too small for most of our clothing. She takes a lot of abuse at the hands of customers (and, sometimes, employees who need to get over their own self-image problems because they're a medium and she makes them feel "fat"). She holds her own pretty well, pointing out that she has an equally hard time when she's forced to buy kids clothes and then she's at the mall and realizes the 10-year-old girl next to her is wearing the same shirt. But the point is most clothes aren't tailored to her body-type either, and she'd gladly trade with the medium-sized employee. But it also isn't as simple as eating more food. Just as it isn't a simple as eating less food.
So, as mean as this sounds, to the people boycotting A&F because they need to expand their clothing sizes: get over it. Shop somewhere else. If you're boycotting them because their CEO is a bully, more power to you, continue with your peaceful protests. Teach your children that the image A&F sends is one that condones bullying and discrimination. Or, grow a spine and tell your children NO when they want to shop there. (Too many times I hear parents say, "she won't wear anything that isn't A&F. It's so expensive but I don't know what to do." And I want to scream, "Tell her NO.") But they don't have to carry clothing to suit everyone's needs. They do need to reevaluate their values, though.
P.S. Yesterday I had a customer who saw a shirt in the "plus" section and asked if it was in "regular girl" sizes. I corrected her, right there, and said, "You mean in the junior sizes?" She kind of stared at me for a second but then she apologized. First of all, she was a small on top and a size 3/4 for bottoms. That is, in no way on Earth, "regular." The average size is between 11-14. I know not only because I read that in an article recently but also because those are the sizes we sell out of first. We also have to correct customers who say, "normal girls sizes," "real girl sizes," and others. I don't expect them to know that our store is divided into "juniors" and "womens" sizes, but I do expect them to say something more like, "do you have this in a medium" or "do you have this in my size?"
April 13, 2013
A Poor Situation
My sister is in the hospital with Spinal Meningitis. She is extremely weak, heavily medicated, and in a lot of pain. Wednesday she underwent surgery to reroute her intestines so her fecal matter would deposit into pouches instead of going through her colon and into her anal cavity. The reason she needed this surgery was because some time ago she broke her tailbone and bacteria from her bowels was seeping into the wound and infecting it. Eventually, the caused an infection so severe it made a sore that went all the way to her spine and that's how she contracted Spinal Meningitis.
Last Sunday and Monday, it looked very bad. My mother even thought that she could die. It was touch and go. The infection had already spread to her brain. Our local hospital wasn't sure they could treat the Meningitis. She was transported to a bigger hospital in another city. This was a touch move since bouncing around in the ambulance caused her agonizing pain. At the new hospital they plied her with antibiotics and did a thousand tests.
Then they formulated a plan to treat the Meningitis, then do this surgery she had, then continue treating the Meningitis, then figure out where to go from there to start curing the wound surrounding her tailbone.
Right now, my mother goes down almost daily to see her. The thing is, we don't really have the money to drive to the city every day. It's about a forty minute drive and we can't afford it daily. We also have to take care of her daughters, we have to go to work, etc. So sometimes, we can't go every day. I know it seems harsh, but she sleeps for most of the time we're there and is disoriented due to pain, pain medication, and the infection in her brain.
The problem with this is when I tell people that I'm going to see her, say, Monday, they ask me, "Well, aren't you going today?" When I answer with "no" they stare at me as though I'm an awful human being. The worst culprit for this is Janet, aforementioned in a previous post. I say something like, "We don't have the money to go there every day. If we went there every day we'd already have spent hundreds in gas and we just can't afford that right now." Then she just glares at me. I mean, usually someone goes every day. Either my nieces (her daughters), my mother, my sister, me, my father, my brother. But we can't all go every day.
I also try to explain that when she's having surgery, the last thing the doctors and nurses need is fifteen people in their way. I also don't really want to go with my older sister because she's an angry person and all she does is yell at the doctors and nurses for not preventing this from happening. (For the record, my sister, the one who's sick, was told about a year ago that something like this would happen if she didn't get the intestine surgery.) Well, anyway, when I say we don't ALL need to be there EVERY DAY Janet launches into a story about how when her mother was dying, she forced the nurses to let her stay with her mother past visiting hours, for as long as she wanted, and forced them to let every person in regardless of time, relationship, or how many people were already there. When I reply that I think it's better for my sister to get some rest, and, besides, we can't afford to take three cars to another city every day, Janet just rolls her eyes and says, "Whatever, honey. So you're not going today? Whatever."
You know what, FUCK YOU JANET. First of all, I've tried to tell everyone at work: we are not trying to treat this like she's dying. A) We've been through several situations like this throughout the years since my sister was paralyzed in an accident twenty-six years ago. B) We can't believe she won't get better because if we break, particularly in front of her daughters, it will just be too much. C) We don't have any evidence it won't get better. We don't have any that it won't get worse, but we're hanging on to the threads we can reach right now. D) This isn't about you, JANET. What I need right now is if I say, "I can go see her on Monday," people try to help me arrange my schedule so I can go see her on Monday.
The other worry is when I say, "We can't afford to go to the city every day," Janet might think I'm trying to manipulate her into giving me money. This has happened before. She told our manager once that because I was trying to decide on whether I had the money to buy this vest I wanted, Janet just KNEW I was actually hinting I wanted her to buy it for me. I'm sorry, but, WHAT? Then my boss wrote ME up. Because actually thinking about your budget out loud is automatically a manipulation technique. I'm sorry that Janet has infinite money and, like, ten credit cards, but I don't. I was just thinking out loud. But after that, I wasn't allowed to even try on a piece of clothing unless I knew I could buy it, because if I had to put it back and Janet found out I put it back because I couldn't afford it, I'd get written up again for manipulation. YEAH.
But what I NEED is for the people who are around me to say, "Whatever you need, let us know." And then I will. And then they will accommodate that. I can't just take every day off from work. I can't afford to work half-shifts for the next few weeks. I can't fill up the gas tank every single day. I can't succumb to the stress of both worrying about my sister and worrying about how people are judging my choices in this situation. I'm trying to handle it all and if I don't have support, the kind of support I NEED, then I'm going lose my handle on it all.
Last Sunday and Monday, it looked very bad. My mother even thought that she could die. It was touch and go. The infection had already spread to her brain. Our local hospital wasn't sure they could treat the Meningitis. She was transported to a bigger hospital in another city. This was a touch move since bouncing around in the ambulance caused her agonizing pain. At the new hospital they plied her with antibiotics and did a thousand tests.
Then they formulated a plan to treat the Meningitis, then do this surgery she had, then continue treating the Meningitis, then figure out where to go from there to start curing the wound surrounding her tailbone.
Right now, my mother goes down almost daily to see her. The thing is, we don't really have the money to drive to the city every day. It's about a forty minute drive and we can't afford it daily. We also have to take care of her daughters, we have to go to work, etc. So sometimes, we can't go every day. I know it seems harsh, but she sleeps for most of the time we're there and is disoriented due to pain, pain medication, and the infection in her brain.
The problem with this is when I tell people that I'm going to see her, say, Monday, they ask me, "Well, aren't you going today?" When I answer with "no" they stare at me as though I'm an awful human being. The worst culprit for this is Janet, aforementioned in a previous post. I say something like, "We don't have the money to go there every day. If we went there every day we'd already have spent hundreds in gas and we just can't afford that right now." Then she just glares at me. I mean, usually someone goes every day. Either my nieces (her daughters), my mother, my sister, me, my father, my brother. But we can't all go every day.
I also try to explain that when she's having surgery, the last thing the doctors and nurses need is fifteen people in their way. I also don't really want to go with my older sister because she's an angry person and all she does is yell at the doctors and nurses for not preventing this from happening. (For the record, my sister, the one who's sick, was told about a year ago that something like this would happen if she didn't get the intestine surgery.) Well, anyway, when I say we don't ALL need to be there EVERY DAY Janet launches into a story about how when her mother was dying, she forced the nurses to let her stay with her mother past visiting hours, for as long as she wanted, and forced them to let every person in regardless of time, relationship, or how many people were already there. When I reply that I think it's better for my sister to get some rest, and, besides, we can't afford to take three cars to another city every day, Janet just rolls her eyes and says, "Whatever, honey. So you're not going today? Whatever."
You know what, FUCK YOU JANET. First of all, I've tried to tell everyone at work: we are not trying to treat this like she's dying. A) We've been through several situations like this throughout the years since my sister was paralyzed in an accident twenty-six years ago. B) We can't believe she won't get better because if we break, particularly in front of her daughters, it will just be too much. C) We don't have any evidence it won't get better. We don't have any that it won't get worse, but we're hanging on to the threads we can reach right now. D) This isn't about you, JANET. What I need right now is if I say, "I can go see her on Monday," people try to help me arrange my schedule so I can go see her on Monday.
The other worry is when I say, "We can't afford to go to the city every day," Janet might think I'm trying to manipulate her into giving me money. This has happened before. She told our manager once that because I was trying to decide on whether I had the money to buy this vest I wanted, Janet just KNEW I was actually hinting I wanted her to buy it for me. I'm sorry, but, WHAT? Then my boss wrote ME up. Because actually thinking about your budget out loud is automatically a manipulation technique. I'm sorry that Janet has infinite money and, like, ten credit cards, but I don't. I was just thinking out loud. But after that, I wasn't allowed to even try on a piece of clothing unless I knew I could buy it, because if I had to put it back and Janet found out I put it back because I couldn't afford it, I'd get written up again for manipulation. YEAH.
But what I NEED is for the people who are around me to say, "Whatever you need, let us know." And then I will. And then they will accommodate that. I can't just take every day off from work. I can't afford to work half-shifts for the next few weeks. I can't fill up the gas tank every single day. I can't succumb to the stress of both worrying about my sister and worrying about how people are judging my choices in this situation. I'm trying to handle it all and if I don't have support, the kind of support I NEED, then I'm going lose my handle on it all.
March 25, 2013
To Vent Again
Why....would anyone asking for money scream and cuss at the person they're asking help from?
Sometimes people are so frustrating and dealing with them makes me want to crawl into bed and never come back out again. Tonight, I had three people ask for money in the course of an hour. One of them asked for five dollars, one asked for ten dollars, and one asked for fifty dollars.
The five dollars, fine. My mother needed me to pick up her medicine and it was going to cost five dollars. No big deal and she needs her medicine and since there isn't anyone else willing to help her, fine.
The ten dollars was actually the one I was most upset by. At first. It will be the one I'm most bothered by in the long run. My father needed to put gas in his car. He needed to do so because he takes EVERYONE ON THE PLANET where they need to go, daily. He takes people an estimated thirty places every day. Well, except he doesn't take me anywhere. I have a car. I put gas in my own car. No one else puts gas in my car. But I have to put gas in the car that takes them everywhere? I told my father I didn't really have ten dollars but if he really needed it I would give it to him. But I told him I had just enough money and that I supposed it would be fine.
Then THIS happened: My sister called to ask for fifty dollars. Now look, she's disabled with two amputated legs and sometimes she needs help but mostly she takes care of herself. By herself. On her own. So when she needs help, that's fine with me.
The problem: she did not call me directly. Instead, she called my mother. My father overheard the one-sided conversation and asked my mother whether my sister was calling to ask for money. When my mother wouldn't answer him, he asked more forcefully and more angrily. So my sister heard him say, "Is she calling to ask for money?" in an angry tone and assumed he was mad because she was asking for money. So my sister, and my niece who was eavesdropping on my sister's side of the phone, started crying, screaming, and cussing. This is all before I ever get on the phone. They also hang up on my mother.
So she calls them back. I get on the phone. They are screaming at me, cussing about how they aren't ever going to fucking ask for any fucking help from any fucking person again and we can all just die and such. I say they need to calm down. That doesn't turn out so well. I tell them I will call them back after I talk to my mother for a minute.
THAT doesn't go well, either. Because when I explain that I think they need to apologize to me because they had no right to scream and cuss at me, my mother goes off on ME. She says that when you're broke and frustrated sometimes you can't help but get angry. I say, I still had nothing to do with that. Then my mother starts yelling at me about how I need to stop trying to explain the world to her and how I need to stop talking to her like she's a child. I say, "All I want from you is for you to admit I had every right to be angry they were cussing at me." She REFUSED. She yelled about how my father shouldn't have said what he said. I remind her that STILL has nothing to do with me. They called to ask me for money, cussed at me, and are still going to get their way and won't have to apologize?
I tell my mother how I feel like my feelings don't matter. They should apologize to me. She screams her tired old, "Tomorrow I'm going to leave all of you behind and get out of this bullshit." Now SHE'S the victim. Because of how I'M treating HER.
I went and got the money. I got my mother's medicine and got sixty dollars cash so my father could put ten dollars in the gas tank and take the other fifty to my sister. I came home and, again, asked my mother to admit that I had the right to be angry. She wouldn't even look at me. In a voice like a child who has to recite some rule her parents have told her, my mother gritted her teeth and "admitted" it. I talked to her for a few more minutes and she never once looked at me. It was so frustrating.
Meanwhile, here's the conversation I had with my father in the car on the way back from getting my mother's medicine: My father told me he had asked whether my sister was calling for money because since I had told him I didn't have any money earlier he was going to save everyone the hassle and let my sister know I didn't have any money. This enraged me for several reasons -
a) I did have the money. I just didn't want to give it to my father for gas. Because it isn't fair that I should have to pay for gas for a car I never use. But now I was forced to admit I told him I didn't have money when I did because I didn't want to give it to him for that reason.
b) He should have known how it was going to sound if someone overheard him. But he doesn't care. He's never wrong, he always has to insert himself in the middle of things, and in case I didn't mention it, he's never wrong.
c) He didn't have the right to tell anyone whether I had money or not. He doesn't have the right to make decisions for me. I know he thought he was protecting me but I should get to tell people what I have or don't have, what I can or can't do, what I will or won't do. That's MY decision.
d) Now EVERYONE knows that I have money. Because when it's a big blowup EVERYONE hears about it. So the money I tried to save for an emergency is just going to get blown away because now they are all going to crawl out of the woodwork. And I won't be able to say no because they'll call me selfish and a liar. And while there's a part of me that knows I shouldn't care, I do, and it's hard.
Sometimes people are so frustrating and dealing with them makes me want to crawl into bed and never come back out again. Tonight, I had three people ask for money in the course of an hour. One of them asked for five dollars, one asked for ten dollars, and one asked for fifty dollars.
The five dollars, fine. My mother needed me to pick up her medicine and it was going to cost five dollars. No big deal and she needs her medicine and since there isn't anyone else willing to help her, fine.
The ten dollars was actually the one I was most upset by. At first. It will be the one I'm most bothered by in the long run. My father needed to put gas in his car. He needed to do so because he takes EVERYONE ON THE PLANET where they need to go, daily. He takes people an estimated thirty places every day. Well, except he doesn't take me anywhere. I have a car. I put gas in my own car. No one else puts gas in my car. But I have to put gas in the car that takes them everywhere? I told my father I didn't really have ten dollars but if he really needed it I would give it to him. But I told him I had just enough money and that I supposed it would be fine.
Then THIS happened: My sister called to ask for fifty dollars. Now look, she's disabled with two amputated legs and sometimes she needs help but mostly she takes care of herself. By herself. On her own. So when she needs help, that's fine with me.
The problem: she did not call me directly. Instead, she called my mother. My father overheard the one-sided conversation and asked my mother whether my sister was calling to ask for money. When my mother wouldn't answer him, he asked more forcefully and more angrily. So my sister heard him say, "Is she calling to ask for money?" in an angry tone and assumed he was mad because she was asking for money. So my sister, and my niece who was eavesdropping on my sister's side of the phone, started crying, screaming, and cussing. This is all before I ever get on the phone. They also hang up on my mother.
So she calls them back. I get on the phone. They are screaming at me, cussing about how they aren't ever going to fucking ask for any fucking help from any fucking person again and we can all just die and such. I say they need to calm down. That doesn't turn out so well. I tell them I will call them back after I talk to my mother for a minute.
THAT doesn't go well, either. Because when I explain that I think they need to apologize to me because they had no right to scream and cuss at me, my mother goes off on ME. She says that when you're broke and frustrated sometimes you can't help but get angry. I say, I still had nothing to do with that. Then my mother starts yelling at me about how I need to stop trying to explain the world to her and how I need to stop talking to her like she's a child. I say, "All I want from you is for you to admit I had every right to be angry they were cussing at me." She REFUSED. She yelled about how my father shouldn't have said what he said. I remind her that STILL has nothing to do with me. They called to ask me for money, cussed at me, and are still going to get their way and won't have to apologize?
I tell my mother how I feel like my feelings don't matter. They should apologize to me. She screams her tired old, "Tomorrow I'm going to leave all of you behind and get out of this bullshit." Now SHE'S the victim. Because of how I'M treating HER.
I went and got the money. I got my mother's medicine and got sixty dollars cash so my father could put ten dollars in the gas tank and take the other fifty to my sister. I came home and, again, asked my mother to admit that I had the right to be angry. She wouldn't even look at me. In a voice like a child who has to recite some rule her parents have told her, my mother gritted her teeth and "admitted" it. I talked to her for a few more minutes and she never once looked at me. It was so frustrating.
Meanwhile, here's the conversation I had with my father in the car on the way back from getting my mother's medicine: My father told me he had asked whether my sister was calling for money because since I had told him I didn't have any money earlier he was going to save everyone the hassle and let my sister know I didn't have any money. This enraged me for several reasons -
a) I did have the money. I just didn't want to give it to my father for gas. Because it isn't fair that I should have to pay for gas for a car I never use. But now I was forced to admit I told him I didn't have money when I did because I didn't want to give it to him for that reason.
b) He should have known how it was going to sound if someone overheard him. But he doesn't care. He's never wrong, he always has to insert himself in the middle of things, and in case I didn't mention it, he's never wrong.
c) He didn't have the right to tell anyone whether I had money or not. He doesn't have the right to make decisions for me. I know he thought he was protecting me but I should get to tell people what I have or don't have, what I can or can't do, what I will or won't do. That's MY decision.
d) Now EVERYONE knows that I have money. Because when it's a big blowup EVERYONE hears about it. So the money I tried to save for an emergency is just going to get blown away because now they are all going to crawl out of the woodwork. And I won't be able to say no because they'll call me selfish and a liar. And while there's a part of me that knows I shouldn't care, I do, and it's hard.
January 27, 2013
Service
Tonight I went out to dinner with most of my coworkers. Our boss takes us out to eat every year for Christmas, which we usually do in January because it's less stressful for most of us to schedule a day and gives us extra time to buy a Secret Santa gift. You know, we work in the customer service field and you would think that would make us more patient when we have service that is good but not perfect. Let me lay out the situation for you.
We went to the Olive Garden. It's a Sunday. We were a group of seven, possibly eight. We didn't have a reservation, but my boss - at the last minute - phoned ahead about a half an hour and asked if they had a wait. Of friggin' course they did, it's a Sunday in an area with several malls. The wait was an hour and twenty minutes. But, they said, if we gave them a name they would make us the first priority when we got there and as soon as a table big enough for us opened up we'd be the first people they seated.
We arrived at the restaraunt. Some of my coworkers complained about having to wait. We waited about ten minutes. On a busy Sunday evening. They let us know multiple times how long we'd be waiting, telling us the table they were going to use for us had been given their bill, then telling us the table was being cleaned off, then seating us. From the time we got there to the time we were seated was no more than about ten minutes. Meanwhile, people who arrived BEFORE us had to wait longer.
We sat. Our waiter told us about the day's wine we could sample. One of my coworkers, let's call her Janet, made a snarky comment about how she doesn't drink red wine, it's disgusting, she needs something sweeter, she only drinks Zinfadel, etc. She couldn't just say, no, thank you. The waiter tried to chat with us as he took our drink order. He asked us if we were celebrating anything. No one answered. I answered and then there were also some mumbled, "Yeah, Christmas." Then he asked how we all knew each other. Again, no one answered. Finally, our boss said we all worked retail. He took our drink orders and said he'd get those and give us time to look over the menu. Our boss said she thought we could order now, and he said, oh, okay, but Janet and another girl weren't ready so they got rude with the WAITER about needing more time.
So, let me just say, Olive Garden was packed. It was loud, there was a HUGE birthday party going on (there must have been thirty or forty people celebrating). Waiters were getting into traffic jams trying to take care of multiple tables at once. It took maybe five minutes for us to get our drinks. My boss and I ordered special drinks (everyone else just had tea or lemonade) so ours were on a list to be made at the bar - even though they were non-alcoholic they were the kind of drinks that have to be MADE and MIXED: some kind of special juice and a smoothie. Janet complained about the fact that my boss and I didn't have our drinks yet. I said, well, they're special, and the waiter did try to reassure us that they were being made as quickly as possible. While we were waiting, the waiter brought us our salad and breadsticks.
And here is where the really frustrating part begins. Two of our coworkers had asked for salad with salad dressing on the side, so the waiter told us he would bring us one salad with dressing and one with it on the side. My coworkers all agreed to this. We said, oh, great, that would be great. So he brings it, just as promised. Quickly, it is obvious it will not be quite enough for seven people, so we politely ask for an extra salad, right? No, the snarky fucking comment to the poor waiter, from Janet, is "Did you really think two salads was going to be enough?" The waiter says he'll bring another salad. He asks if we want it to have dressing on the side. We don't. When he leaves, Janet continues to complain about the amount of salad. I say, "He's getting us another one. He's fixing the problem." She says, yeah, but still, you know? And I'm like, no.
During this time, also, another waiter brought our special drinks. Janet says, "I was starting to think we'd be done with our salads before you guys got those drinks." I say, again, well, they had to be specially made. At this point, everyone can tell that I'm getting angry. It's uncomfortable. But I'm not going to just let her make those comments. The waiter is doing the best he can. Another coworker who used to work in a restaurant tries to diffuse the situation (though moments before she was snarking on the poor waiter, too) by saying that it's hard on the waiters because they can only go as fast as the kitchen/bar can go.
We get our extra salad. Our boss tries to make a joke that I get first dibbs because I let everyone else take the first salads. The truth is I didn't want any salad, really, but I took a little just to make everyone happy. I ate, maybe, two bites. As we're spooning out our new salad, our dinners come. Janet, FUCKING JANET, has to make a comment that we aren't even done eating salad. I don't know what this woman wants. I say that we can eat salads along side our meals. She says most people want to eat their salads first and then eat their meals. I say, not the people I know. She just glares at me.
We eat in mostly silence. Oh, but let me add this: during the entire meal - the ENTIRE meal - every one of my coworkers is playing on her cell phone. Except me, as I have an ancient flip phone with no texting or internet nor do I have the desire for a phone with either of those capabilities. They are texting; sometimes they are texting EACH OTHER. They decide to "friend" each other on Facebook and so there is a mini-marathon of passing phones around so each woman can type her name into everyone else's phone. Meanwhile, the waiter is trying to ask questions (like taking our orders) but is getting no answers or just annoyed looks because, you know, we're busy. I was so FUCKING embarrassed.
Let me back up. As soon as we sat down Janet wanted to know where the dessert menu was. At this time, chaos is going on because we're all getting situated, asking each other how we're doing, looking at our menus, the waiter is trying to get our drink orders, etc. Janet just keeps complaining about that dessert menu.
But now, back to the future, we've eaten and it's traditionally time for dessert. The waiter tells us about the desserts (I admit to being annoyed by no menu). He tells us the first dessert and Janet interrupts him to say, "Chocolate. We want chocolate." I tell him that I, in fact, don't want chocolate but want Tiramisu. Everyone asks what that is and so he continues on with the desserts and eventually says there is chocolate cake. CHAOS ENSUES as everyone asks him how big the cake is, how many calories, etc. What the fuck, it's a dessert! You know it has a lot of calories, deal! As he's walking away our teenager says, "Excuse me, but I want some water." He asks if she wants lemon in it and she GLARES at him and just says, "Whatever, no, um, just no." I say, he just asked if we wanted refills and you didn't speak up then. She just stares at me. He puts in our orders and brings the check.
And here, ladies and gentlemen, is where I begin to throw a fit. Because an audible bitchfest begins about how bad the service was. The drinks were too slow. There wasn't enough salad. Our food came too quickly. Janet didn't like him (he was, by the way, clearly gay and it is known she's uncomfortable with gay men - you know what, men in general). The girl who used to work in a restaurant begins detailing all the ways she would have been in trouble if she had served like he had served.
I am PISSED. I start reminding them that the restaurant is busy, they got a party of seven seated within ten minutes, they filled all of our requests, and the waiter tried to be friendly. The whole time my boss is watching my face and she can see that I'm upset and so she tries to ask if 25% is too much. Now look: YES. I feel 15% - 20% is fine for good service and I think he did the best he could with the situation he had. My coworkers, especially Janet, get loud about how they would only give 15% for really good service, and according to them, he was not good service. I reiterate that he did a fine job given the situation and that 15% would be fine.
Again, meanwhile, and I know this is long but I need to vent, the waiter is boxing up our food, writing what it was and the date on it, boxing up the extra salad, giving us bags for the breadsticks. He even wrote us a little note on the comment card that recalled every detail we had told him the few times we did actually chat with him. So, anyway, our boss gives him 20% and we leave. On our way out he taps me on the shoulder and says that Janet forgot her box, so could I make sure she gets it? I say sure and thank him for everything. When I catch up to Janet and tell her she forgot her box, she says, "I didn't want that. He didn't even ask me if I wanted that. What the hell?" So I just snatch it out of her hands and walk to the car.
Our boss paid for everything. She picked up the whole bill. I tried to call her to talk to her, but she didn't answer. I know she knows I'm upset. I know she's avoiding me. So I will have to talk to her tomorrow. I'm going to ask her if she wants me to pay her back for my meal because it will make it easier for me to tell her I'm never going out with them again. This happens every fucking time. We've gone out for a few occasions this year and this happens EVERY FUCKING TIME. And I'm finally done with it. I'm done being completely embarrassed. It isn't a mandatory dinner so maybe they'll have more fun next year when they can complain about nonsense without being interrupted. I know I'll have more fun reading a book or watching TV.
We went to the Olive Garden. It's a Sunday. We were a group of seven, possibly eight. We didn't have a reservation, but my boss - at the last minute - phoned ahead about a half an hour and asked if they had a wait. Of friggin' course they did, it's a Sunday in an area with several malls. The wait was an hour and twenty minutes. But, they said, if we gave them a name they would make us the first priority when we got there and as soon as a table big enough for us opened up we'd be the first people they seated.
We arrived at the restaraunt. Some of my coworkers complained about having to wait. We waited about ten minutes. On a busy Sunday evening. They let us know multiple times how long we'd be waiting, telling us the table they were going to use for us had been given their bill, then telling us the table was being cleaned off, then seating us. From the time we got there to the time we were seated was no more than about ten minutes. Meanwhile, people who arrived BEFORE us had to wait longer.
We sat. Our waiter told us about the day's wine we could sample. One of my coworkers, let's call her Janet, made a snarky comment about how she doesn't drink red wine, it's disgusting, she needs something sweeter, she only drinks Zinfadel, etc. She couldn't just say, no, thank you. The waiter tried to chat with us as he took our drink order. He asked us if we were celebrating anything. No one answered. I answered and then there were also some mumbled, "Yeah, Christmas." Then he asked how we all knew each other. Again, no one answered. Finally, our boss said we all worked retail. He took our drink orders and said he'd get those and give us time to look over the menu. Our boss said she thought we could order now, and he said, oh, okay, but Janet and another girl weren't ready so they got rude with the WAITER about needing more time.
So, let me just say, Olive Garden was packed. It was loud, there was a HUGE birthday party going on (there must have been thirty or forty people celebrating). Waiters were getting into traffic jams trying to take care of multiple tables at once. It took maybe five minutes for us to get our drinks. My boss and I ordered special drinks (everyone else just had tea or lemonade) so ours were on a list to be made at the bar - even though they were non-alcoholic they were the kind of drinks that have to be MADE and MIXED: some kind of special juice and a smoothie. Janet complained about the fact that my boss and I didn't have our drinks yet. I said, well, they're special, and the waiter did try to reassure us that they were being made as quickly as possible. While we were waiting, the waiter brought us our salad and breadsticks.
And here is where the really frustrating part begins. Two of our coworkers had asked for salad with salad dressing on the side, so the waiter told us he would bring us one salad with dressing and one with it on the side. My coworkers all agreed to this. We said, oh, great, that would be great. So he brings it, just as promised. Quickly, it is obvious it will not be quite enough for seven people, so we politely ask for an extra salad, right? No, the snarky fucking comment to the poor waiter, from Janet, is "Did you really think two salads was going to be enough?" The waiter says he'll bring another salad. He asks if we want it to have dressing on the side. We don't. When he leaves, Janet continues to complain about the amount of salad. I say, "He's getting us another one. He's fixing the problem." She says, yeah, but still, you know? And I'm like, no.
During this time, also, another waiter brought our special drinks. Janet says, "I was starting to think we'd be done with our salads before you guys got those drinks." I say, again, well, they had to be specially made. At this point, everyone can tell that I'm getting angry. It's uncomfortable. But I'm not going to just let her make those comments. The waiter is doing the best he can. Another coworker who used to work in a restaurant tries to diffuse the situation (though moments before she was snarking on the poor waiter, too) by saying that it's hard on the waiters because they can only go as fast as the kitchen/bar can go.
We get our extra salad. Our boss tries to make a joke that I get first dibbs because I let everyone else take the first salads. The truth is I didn't want any salad, really, but I took a little just to make everyone happy. I ate, maybe, two bites. As we're spooning out our new salad, our dinners come. Janet, FUCKING JANET, has to make a comment that we aren't even done eating salad. I don't know what this woman wants. I say that we can eat salads along side our meals. She says most people want to eat their salads first and then eat their meals. I say, not the people I know. She just glares at me.
We eat in mostly silence. Oh, but let me add this: during the entire meal - the ENTIRE meal - every one of my coworkers is playing on her cell phone. Except me, as I have an ancient flip phone with no texting or internet nor do I have the desire for a phone with either of those capabilities. They are texting; sometimes they are texting EACH OTHER. They decide to "friend" each other on Facebook and so there is a mini-marathon of passing phones around so each woman can type her name into everyone else's phone. Meanwhile, the waiter is trying to ask questions (like taking our orders) but is getting no answers or just annoyed looks because, you know, we're busy. I was so FUCKING embarrassed.
Let me back up. As soon as we sat down Janet wanted to know where the dessert menu was. At this time, chaos is going on because we're all getting situated, asking each other how we're doing, looking at our menus, the waiter is trying to get our drink orders, etc. Janet just keeps complaining about that dessert menu.
But now, back to the future, we've eaten and it's traditionally time for dessert. The waiter tells us about the desserts (I admit to being annoyed by no menu). He tells us the first dessert and Janet interrupts him to say, "Chocolate. We want chocolate." I tell him that I, in fact, don't want chocolate but want Tiramisu. Everyone asks what that is and so he continues on with the desserts and eventually says there is chocolate cake. CHAOS ENSUES as everyone asks him how big the cake is, how many calories, etc. What the fuck, it's a dessert! You know it has a lot of calories, deal! As he's walking away our teenager says, "Excuse me, but I want some water." He asks if she wants lemon in it and she GLARES at him and just says, "Whatever, no, um, just no." I say, he just asked if we wanted refills and you didn't speak up then. She just stares at me. He puts in our orders and brings the check.
And here, ladies and gentlemen, is where I begin to throw a fit. Because an audible bitchfest begins about how bad the service was. The drinks were too slow. There wasn't enough salad. Our food came too quickly. Janet didn't like him (he was, by the way, clearly gay and it is known she's uncomfortable with gay men - you know what, men in general). The girl who used to work in a restaurant begins detailing all the ways she would have been in trouble if she had served like he had served.
I am PISSED. I start reminding them that the restaurant is busy, they got a party of seven seated within ten minutes, they filled all of our requests, and the waiter tried to be friendly. The whole time my boss is watching my face and she can see that I'm upset and so she tries to ask if 25% is too much. Now look: YES. I feel 15% - 20% is fine for good service and I think he did the best he could with the situation he had. My coworkers, especially Janet, get loud about how they would only give 15% for really good service, and according to them, he was not good service. I reiterate that he did a fine job given the situation and that 15% would be fine.
Again, meanwhile, and I know this is long but I need to vent, the waiter is boxing up our food, writing what it was and the date on it, boxing up the extra salad, giving us bags for the breadsticks. He even wrote us a little note on the comment card that recalled every detail we had told him the few times we did actually chat with him. So, anyway, our boss gives him 20% and we leave. On our way out he taps me on the shoulder and says that Janet forgot her box, so could I make sure she gets it? I say sure and thank him for everything. When I catch up to Janet and tell her she forgot her box, she says, "I didn't want that. He didn't even ask me if I wanted that. What the hell?" So I just snatch it out of her hands and walk to the car.
Our boss paid for everything. She picked up the whole bill. I tried to call her to talk to her, but she didn't answer. I know she knows I'm upset. I know she's avoiding me. So I will have to talk to her tomorrow. I'm going to ask her if she wants me to pay her back for my meal because it will make it easier for me to tell her I'm never going out with them again. This happens every fucking time. We've gone out for a few occasions this year and this happens EVERY FUCKING TIME. And I'm finally done with it. I'm done being completely embarrassed. It isn't a mandatory dinner so maybe they'll have more fun next year when they can complain about nonsense without being interrupted. I know I'll have more fun reading a book or watching TV.
December 31, 2012
New Year's Resolutions/Confessions
Happy New Year!
The past year has been one where I've been very unhappy. I don't know if it's been THE most miserable of my life, but it's up there. This year I learned how I look to creditors (like a wet-behind-the-ears child), I felt like a prisoner (had to give up my car for a few months when we lost our second car), I feared losing people I love (friends and family), and I struggled with money (having to support my sister and her brood when she blew through $10,000 and then again when she up and quit her job and didn't get another one for over a month). I've been very stressed out. Normally, I don't talk about my FEELINGS, so I don't really open up to many people. I've always felt a little like my problems are less than others' problems so I bottle myself up. This post is going to be about expressing some FEELINGS and making some resolutions.
First, I wanted to run through the six major emotions and give an example of how I've felt each one in the past twelve months. The six emotions are fear, disgust, sadness, anger, happiness, and surprise. I've said it before (though somewhere else, I believe), those are some depressing emotions. The only chance for happiness is, well, happiness, and possibly surprise. Let's see if I was surprised for the better this year -
1) Fear: This year I've been afraid that I'm just a convenience to most people. I feel this way a lot, in every aspect of my life. From my house, where I feel like a convenient meal ticket, to my job, where I feel like a convenient filler, to my friendships, where I feel like a convenient backup. I wonder what's wrong with me? I fear that people often realize there isn't much to me, that I'm too boring, too shy, too nervous. I fear that I have to admit they're right. In the beginning, I meet new people and they want to go out after work or out to dinner on a weekend. We make plans a few times, we go out. Eventually I ask them to go out and they're busy. Then they aren't busy as long as someone else is coming. Then they make plans with that person right in front of me and don't invite me and that is very painful. But then I think how I'm not exciting. My hobbies are reading and video games. Who the hell would be interested in me? Sometimes later they ask me after they've been rejected and don't realize I was standing right there and now I know they're only asking me for their own convenience. I'm probably not even Plan B.
2) Disgust: I've felt disgusted with several members of my family. From my sister mooching from everyone around her to my niece's "I just tell the truth" piss-poor attitude, I've felt disgusted at a lot of the hypocrisy surrounding me on a daily basis. On Christmas my sister, who got pregnant at seventeen years old, told another niece she was a whore for getting pregnant at twenty-one. ON CHRISTMAS. Then, hours later, several members of my family decided to rant and rail about this WHORE in front of a guest, a somewhat stranger, a ninety-year-old invalid who my sister-in-law takes care of and who has no family and came to our house to celebrate Christmas with someone. I was so embarrassed. My mother was mortified. She tried to get them to stop but, you know, sorry, someone has to tell the truth and they're all just telling the truth. The truth hurts. It's also ugly. And often hypocritical. And disgusting.
3) Sadness: It was sad that my middle sister, who is handicapped but pretty much totally independent, was told she might have to make a choice between death and being bedridden for life. It's been frustrating and sad to see someone punished who is trying, who is taking care of her children, who helps her parents and everyone around her whenever she can. What force in the universe has decided this? I know it's just the luck of the draw, just circumstance, but where am I supposed to scream about the unfairness of it all? I'm somewhat sad that I have nowhere to turn for even cathartic blame. Luck. Fucking LUCK. So far my sister has staved off making this choice. I don't know when her LUCK will run out, though. It's sad that I know in my heart it will be soon.
4) Anger: Anger. I have felt a lot of anger. I'm angry at myself, mostly. I've made my bed. I've relied on my parents for too long and caused the situation where I have no substantial credit history. I've allowed myself to get comfortable in a mediocre job. I've procrastinated. I've wallowed in so-called "writer's block." I've secreted myself away and pushed away my friends. Isn't my sister who lives with me just projecting her internal FEELINGS when she calls people lazy, calls them stupid, calls them WHORES? My anger with her is anger with myself. I haven't saved money. I haven't endeavored for a better job or developed the discipline to turn my talent into something real. I haven't changed my routine of wake up, work, play on the computer, read, sleep. Again, who could be interested in me? Not just socially but financially, career-wise, etc.? Who am I and what am I doing? Where am I going, where have I been? I'll be thirty-four and I can't even FIND my diploma for graduate school. What the hell have I done with it?
5) Happiness: I don't know. There were little moments. I was happy when I got my car back after about six months of never being able to use it. I was happy when I discovered the writer Haruki Murakami. I was happy when I found a Chocolate Orange in a random place at the grocery store because I've searched up and down for them. I was happy listening to Gene Wilder read an audiobook. I was happy when an antibiotic finally cleared up the acne on my face (please let it last). I'm trying so hard to think of something big. To think of a moment that carried me through longer than a day or two. Maybe...maybe happiness is just those little moments? Maybe I should print that out and tape it above my bed. Maybe every day I need to sit down and remember the one thing that made me happy that day, even if it's just the hot UPS man calling me "dear."
6) Surprise: I was suprised to admit to myself it's okay to be unhappy. I've spent so much time being upset when my somewhat happier childhood was brushed off as though I was less of a person for feeling happy. Pain is supposedly what makes us human. I hated the words, "You don't know how that feels," because it was like my life was not valid because I hadn't experienced this or that. I still don't cater to that theory. Everyone, even happy people, are valid. Their opinions and FEELINGS are valid. But...I'm a little less happy than I have been in the past. And that doesn't break my theory. I don't feel stronger. I don't necessarily feel weaker, either. I feel...different. I feel...focused? I feel...exposed? I feel....
So I've made some resolutions. Some I've made before, like reading and writing schedules. It WILL happen. This time (I mean it) I don't have a goal as much as a routine. I will read one book, then take a day off to reflect on that book, then read another book, etc. One thing I've learned about myself recently is that I don't like to read books back-to-back. I like to ruminate. I like to bounce around ideas and uncover flaws and discover wonders. I like to return to particularly intriguing passages. When I was finished reading 1Q84 by Murakami, I tried immediately reading another book and what happened was I hated the newer book because I wanted to return to parts of 1Q84 and think. I know, it sounds like homework, this routine. It sounds like all of the pleasure is being taken out of picking up a book and getting lost in it. But I promise, for me, this is how I can make myself happy.
The next resolution is about money. I'm going to keep a ledger. I want to see where my money goes. I already started an informal one and for the most part my money goes toward the little groceries we need to keep the house running (milk, toilet paper, bread) and I go to the store for those things almost daily. Last week I bought five gallons of milk. FIVE GALLONS. Everyone at my job knows when my parents call me they're going to ask me to pick something up at the grocery store after work. So my resolution is this: I will keep two columns - one where I write down the exact amount I've spent and one where I round up to the next dollar. At the end of the month I will put the difference into a separate account. Also, any money left out of my paycheck at the end of every two weeks will go into my savings account. That's a third account, by the way. I will have two checking accounts and a savings account. The savings account is for absolute - and I mean life-and-death - emergencies. The second checking account is for smaller emergencies, though my plan is to try very hard not to touch it either. These two accounts are secret. I also have a 401(k) and life insurance. I WILL start saving money.
My final (big) resolution is to get out and do something. The local bookstore hosts readings, bands, and other events and I'm going to attend at least one of these events each month. There is a great wood-fired pizza place right down the street and the bookstore has wi-fi, coffee, and well, books. Yeah, I'll need some money. But when I look at how much money I spend getting Subway when I could be making cous-cous and salads that last for several meals and are awesomely fresh-sealed in a jar, I realize that splurging on a $7 pizza and a $10 book once a month isn't what will break my bank. And now that I have my car back, I can go anywhere I damn-well please for as long as it pleases me. And I WILL.
I need to do these things to put myself on some sort of track. These things aren't major life changes but they are what I feel I can do right now. Do what you can with what you have, right? Right.
I WILL have a happier new year.
The past year has been one where I've been very unhappy. I don't know if it's been THE most miserable of my life, but it's up there. This year I learned how I look to creditors (like a wet-behind-the-ears child), I felt like a prisoner (had to give up my car for a few months when we lost our second car), I feared losing people I love (friends and family), and I struggled with money (having to support my sister and her brood when she blew through $10,000 and then again when she up and quit her job and didn't get another one for over a month). I've been very stressed out. Normally, I don't talk about my FEELINGS, so I don't really open up to many people. I've always felt a little like my problems are less than others' problems so I bottle myself up. This post is going to be about expressing some FEELINGS and making some resolutions.
First, I wanted to run through the six major emotions and give an example of how I've felt each one in the past twelve months. The six emotions are fear, disgust, sadness, anger, happiness, and surprise. I've said it before (though somewhere else, I believe), those are some depressing emotions. The only chance for happiness is, well, happiness, and possibly surprise. Let's see if I was surprised for the better this year -
1) Fear: This year I've been afraid that I'm just a convenience to most people. I feel this way a lot, in every aspect of my life. From my house, where I feel like a convenient meal ticket, to my job, where I feel like a convenient filler, to my friendships, where I feel like a convenient backup. I wonder what's wrong with me? I fear that people often realize there isn't much to me, that I'm too boring, too shy, too nervous. I fear that I have to admit they're right. In the beginning, I meet new people and they want to go out after work or out to dinner on a weekend. We make plans a few times, we go out. Eventually I ask them to go out and they're busy. Then they aren't busy as long as someone else is coming. Then they make plans with that person right in front of me and don't invite me and that is very painful. But then I think how I'm not exciting. My hobbies are reading and video games. Who the hell would be interested in me? Sometimes later they ask me after they've been rejected and don't realize I was standing right there and now I know they're only asking me for their own convenience. I'm probably not even Plan B.
2) Disgust: I've felt disgusted with several members of my family. From my sister mooching from everyone around her to my niece's "I just tell the truth" piss-poor attitude, I've felt disgusted at a lot of the hypocrisy surrounding me on a daily basis. On Christmas my sister, who got pregnant at seventeen years old, told another niece she was a whore for getting pregnant at twenty-one. ON CHRISTMAS. Then, hours later, several members of my family decided to rant and rail about this WHORE in front of a guest, a somewhat stranger, a ninety-year-old invalid who my sister-in-law takes care of and who has no family and came to our house to celebrate Christmas with someone. I was so embarrassed. My mother was mortified. She tried to get them to stop but, you know, sorry, someone has to tell the truth and they're all just telling the truth. The truth hurts. It's also ugly. And often hypocritical. And disgusting.
3) Sadness: It was sad that my middle sister, who is handicapped but pretty much totally independent, was told she might have to make a choice between death and being bedridden for life. It's been frustrating and sad to see someone punished who is trying, who is taking care of her children, who helps her parents and everyone around her whenever she can. What force in the universe has decided this? I know it's just the luck of the draw, just circumstance, but where am I supposed to scream about the unfairness of it all? I'm somewhat sad that I have nowhere to turn for even cathartic blame. Luck. Fucking LUCK. So far my sister has staved off making this choice. I don't know when her LUCK will run out, though. It's sad that I know in my heart it will be soon.
4) Anger: Anger. I have felt a lot of anger. I'm angry at myself, mostly. I've made my bed. I've relied on my parents for too long and caused the situation where I have no substantial credit history. I've allowed myself to get comfortable in a mediocre job. I've procrastinated. I've wallowed in so-called "writer's block." I've secreted myself away and pushed away my friends. Isn't my sister who lives with me just projecting her internal FEELINGS when she calls people lazy, calls them stupid, calls them WHORES? My anger with her is anger with myself. I haven't saved money. I haven't endeavored for a better job or developed the discipline to turn my talent into something real. I haven't changed my routine of wake up, work, play on the computer, read, sleep. Again, who could be interested in me? Not just socially but financially, career-wise, etc.? Who am I and what am I doing? Where am I going, where have I been? I'll be thirty-four and I can't even FIND my diploma for graduate school. What the hell have I done with it?
5) Happiness: I don't know. There were little moments. I was happy when I got my car back after about six months of never being able to use it. I was happy when I discovered the writer Haruki Murakami. I was happy when I found a Chocolate Orange in a random place at the grocery store because I've searched up and down for them. I was happy listening to Gene Wilder read an audiobook. I was happy when an antibiotic finally cleared up the acne on my face (please let it last). I'm trying so hard to think of something big. To think of a moment that carried me through longer than a day or two. Maybe...maybe happiness is just those little moments? Maybe I should print that out and tape it above my bed. Maybe every day I need to sit down and remember the one thing that made me happy that day, even if it's just the hot UPS man calling me "dear."
6) Surprise: I was suprised to admit to myself it's okay to be unhappy. I've spent so much time being upset when my somewhat happier childhood was brushed off as though I was less of a person for feeling happy. Pain is supposedly what makes us human. I hated the words, "You don't know how that feels," because it was like my life was not valid because I hadn't experienced this or that. I still don't cater to that theory. Everyone, even happy people, are valid. Their opinions and FEELINGS are valid. But...I'm a little less happy than I have been in the past. And that doesn't break my theory. I don't feel stronger. I don't necessarily feel weaker, either. I feel...different. I feel...focused? I feel...exposed? I feel....
So I've made some resolutions. Some I've made before, like reading and writing schedules. It WILL happen. This time (I mean it) I don't have a goal as much as a routine. I will read one book, then take a day off to reflect on that book, then read another book, etc. One thing I've learned about myself recently is that I don't like to read books back-to-back. I like to ruminate. I like to bounce around ideas and uncover flaws and discover wonders. I like to return to particularly intriguing passages. When I was finished reading 1Q84 by Murakami, I tried immediately reading another book and what happened was I hated the newer book because I wanted to return to parts of 1Q84 and think. I know, it sounds like homework, this routine. It sounds like all of the pleasure is being taken out of picking up a book and getting lost in it. But I promise, for me, this is how I can make myself happy.
The next resolution is about money. I'm going to keep a ledger. I want to see where my money goes. I already started an informal one and for the most part my money goes toward the little groceries we need to keep the house running (milk, toilet paper, bread) and I go to the store for those things almost daily. Last week I bought five gallons of milk. FIVE GALLONS. Everyone at my job knows when my parents call me they're going to ask me to pick something up at the grocery store after work. So my resolution is this: I will keep two columns - one where I write down the exact amount I've spent and one where I round up to the next dollar. At the end of the month I will put the difference into a separate account. Also, any money left out of my paycheck at the end of every two weeks will go into my savings account. That's a third account, by the way. I will have two checking accounts and a savings account. The savings account is for absolute - and I mean life-and-death - emergencies. The second checking account is for smaller emergencies, though my plan is to try very hard not to touch it either. These two accounts are secret. I also have a 401(k) and life insurance. I WILL start saving money.
My final (big) resolution is to get out and do something. The local bookstore hosts readings, bands, and other events and I'm going to attend at least one of these events each month. There is a great wood-fired pizza place right down the street and the bookstore has wi-fi, coffee, and well, books. Yeah, I'll need some money. But when I look at how much money I spend getting Subway when I could be making cous-cous and salads that last for several meals and are awesomely fresh-sealed in a jar, I realize that splurging on a $7 pizza and a $10 book once a month isn't what will break my bank. And now that I have my car back, I can go anywhere I damn-well please for as long as it pleases me. And I WILL.
I need to do these things to put myself on some sort of track. These things aren't major life changes but they are what I feel I can do right now. Do what you can with what you have, right? Right.
I WILL have a happier new year.
November 29, 2012
Message
It's OKAY to have a phobia. Phobias are defined as irrational fears. Yet, most phobias are far from irrational. The best thing to do is find a competent, caring psychologist (or psychiatrist) who can help you through your fears. Or who can at least lend an ear to letting you vent about them.
I've never been able to find anyone who will listen about my own phobia: swallowing. Right now I'm having a seriously hard time eating because over the past few weeks I've developed some kind of fear that I will choke at any moment. As I'm chewing, my chest and stomach begin to feel bloated and I feel the need to burp. Just as I begin to swallow, I burp instead and it makes me start gagging and I don't know what to do. I try burping right before I swallow to see if that helps, but what I usually end up doing is gripping the edge of the table as I force myself to swallow, or gripping the arm of the chair. I also usually end up abandoning what I'm eating halfway through. I go through phases of the problem every few months. It makes eating at work tough because I'm embarrassed when people can see me eating.
I've tried to tell a few people about this. Namely, I've told some doctors and my psychology professor from college. They all laughed at me. My professor told me he had never, ever heard of something like this (and he was in his sixties). Another doctor told me I was just ridiculous. Another looked right at me and asked, "Are you a little sissy girl?"
Sometimes it gets so bad I can't swallow liquid. Once my mother took me out to eat and I couldn't even eat little pieces of crab. A lot of times I resort to crunchy food because it breaks down into smaller pieces as opposed to, say, bread, which becomes a giant clump in my mouth and I have to roll it around trying to separate it into smaller bites.
Crazy, right? I don't know what to do. I talk to those doctors, hoping they'll give me advice, like what they would tell someone with a narrow esophagus or an extremely sensitive gag reflex. But instead they laugh at me. One even told me, when I asked him to reassure me that I won't choke, that I could in fact choke on something as small as a pea. He said it quite dismissively. He could have lied. He could have tried to help me. Instead he just made the situation even worse.
It's exhausting to eat. It's a fight. Should I ask for some kind of anxiety pills that I take an hour or so before eating (which I would have to crush up and put in pudding)? Is there a trick to sort of hypnotize myself? Should I start collecting recipes that only use crunchy foods? I don't know what to do.
I've never been able to find anyone who will listen about my own phobia: swallowing. Right now I'm having a seriously hard time eating because over the past few weeks I've developed some kind of fear that I will choke at any moment. As I'm chewing, my chest and stomach begin to feel bloated and I feel the need to burp. Just as I begin to swallow, I burp instead and it makes me start gagging and I don't know what to do. I try burping right before I swallow to see if that helps, but what I usually end up doing is gripping the edge of the table as I force myself to swallow, or gripping the arm of the chair. I also usually end up abandoning what I'm eating halfway through. I go through phases of the problem every few months. It makes eating at work tough because I'm embarrassed when people can see me eating.
I've tried to tell a few people about this. Namely, I've told some doctors and my psychology professor from college. They all laughed at me. My professor told me he had never, ever heard of something like this (and he was in his sixties). Another doctor told me I was just ridiculous. Another looked right at me and asked, "Are you a little sissy girl?"
Sometimes it gets so bad I can't swallow liquid. Once my mother took me out to eat and I couldn't even eat little pieces of crab. A lot of times I resort to crunchy food because it breaks down into smaller pieces as opposed to, say, bread, which becomes a giant clump in my mouth and I have to roll it around trying to separate it into smaller bites.
Crazy, right? I don't know what to do. I talk to those doctors, hoping they'll give me advice, like what they would tell someone with a narrow esophagus or an extremely sensitive gag reflex. But instead they laugh at me. One even told me, when I asked him to reassure me that I won't choke, that I could in fact choke on something as small as a pea. He said it quite dismissively. He could have lied. He could have tried to help me. Instead he just made the situation even worse.
It's exhausting to eat. It's a fight. Should I ask for some kind of anxiety pills that I take an hour or so before eating (which I would have to crush up and put in pudding)? Is there a trick to sort of hypnotize myself? Should I start collecting recipes that only use crunchy foods? I don't know what to do.
September 1, 2012
How I Waste My Money
I think we'll just have to agree to disagree in regards to our tastes in literature. (You know who you are.) ;)
I started reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and suffice to say it's a very beautiful book in many ways. There are passages, in the little bit I was able to get through, that are simply breathtaking.
However....
I have never been a fan of anything that beats me over the head. I got through about thirty pages before I couldn't handle the asides anymore, the bolded stop signs making sure I'm paying attention to the clever parallels, symbols, and philosophies. Those things are there, and are brilliant, but I don't want to be pointed to them, not blantantly. I like making realizations. I like connecting the dots. I like getting swept up in metaphor.
What I don't like is being treated like I'm too stupid to make those realizations, to connect those dots, to admire those metaphors. I know, I'm going to get bombarded by tomatoes for saying this. And I'm sure Zusak didn't mean to imply his audience couldn't make those connections for themselves. I'm sure he meant it as a parallel to the thought control rampant during the Nazi reign. I'm sure he thought it was an interesting structure for his book. And that's fine if he really achieved the effect he was going for.
But it's not for me. I felt insulted. I tried to get over it; I tried to get past one passage that particularly angered me. I read on for a few pages until another cropped up and I realized I was going to be angry for more than five hundred pages and not in the way someone should be angry when reading about the atrocities during the wars.
And how is it wasting my money? For the same reason I've been struggling this whole year with what I read: I spent money buying this book. I felt sure I would love it and I felt confident I'd have no regrets. Whenever I read comments about this book they were all glowing and amazed. I thought, how could I go wrong with this one?
I really need to just get random books from the library. For anyone who reads my blogs (which is one person, so I'm sorry you have to hear this AGAIN) you know I've said a thousand times that I should just go to the library. I should just pull five random books. It always turns out the same when I do so - they are balanced as far as a sliding scale of good and bad writing. My worry is that my little library doesn't have a great selection, and when I try to get books transferred they often don't come in and I'm nothing if not a creature who has to have what I want when I want it. I'm not proud of that realization, but I've come to said realization. With no one else's help, thanks.
I also have a very hard time making a decision, because reading a book takes time, and I've forced myself into a schedule and I don't want to waste time either. And since this year's track record is a bunch of major disappointments, I'm worried about the future and I'm worried about feeling anxious when it comes to reading. It is now in the back of my head with everything I read that I might hate it, that excitement may warp into frustration. Maybe I should only pick up books I think I'll hate and it will turn out that every one of them is brillant beyond belief.
I know I'm really doing this to myself. Maybe...maybe I should read The Book Thief and just skip any bolded parts. I wonder if that would be possible? I'm sure it would be. I'm sure I'm working myself into a frenzy for no reason other than letting myself get distracted...again.
I started reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and suffice to say it's a very beautiful book in many ways. There are passages, in the little bit I was able to get through, that are simply breathtaking.
However....
I have never been a fan of anything that beats me over the head. I got through about thirty pages before I couldn't handle the asides anymore, the bolded stop signs making sure I'm paying attention to the clever parallels, symbols, and philosophies. Those things are there, and are brilliant, but I don't want to be pointed to them, not blantantly. I like making realizations. I like connecting the dots. I like getting swept up in metaphor.
What I don't like is being treated like I'm too stupid to make those realizations, to connect those dots, to admire those metaphors. I know, I'm going to get bombarded by tomatoes for saying this. And I'm sure Zusak didn't mean to imply his audience couldn't make those connections for themselves. I'm sure he meant it as a parallel to the thought control rampant during the Nazi reign. I'm sure he thought it was an interesting structure for his book. And that's fine if he really achieved the effect he was going for.
But it's not for me. I felt insulted. I tried to get over it; I tried to get past one passage that particularly angered me. I read on for a few pages until another cropped up and I realized I was going to be angry for more than five hundred pages and not in the way someone should be angry when reading about the atrocities during the wars.
And how is it wasting my money? For the same reason I've been struggling this whole year with what I read: I spent money buying this book. I felt sure I would love it and I felt confident I'd have no regrets. Whenever I read comments about this book they were all glowing and amazed. I thought, how could I go wrong with this one?
I really need to just get random books from the library. For anyone who reads my blogs (which is one person, so I'm sorry you have to hear this AGAIN) you know I've said a thousand times that I should just go to the library. I should just pull five random books. It always turns out the same when I do so - they are balanced as far as a sliding scale of good and bad writing. My worry is that my little library doesn't have a great selection, and when I try to get books transferred they often don't come in and I'm nothing if not a creature who has to have what I want when I want it. I'm not proud of that realization, but I've come to said realization. With no one else's help, thanks.
I also have a very hard time making a decision, because reading a book takes time, and I've forced myself into a schedule and I don't want to waste time either. And since this year's track record is a bunch of major disappointments, I'm worried about the future and I'm worried about feeling anxious when it comes to reading. It is now in the back of my head with everything I read that I might hate it, that excitement may warp into frustration. Maybe I should only pick up books I think I'll hate and it will turn out that every one of them is brillant beyond belief.
I know I'm really doing this to myself. Maybe...maybe I should read The Book Thief and just skip any bolded parts. I wonder if that would be possible? I'm sure it would be. I'm sure I'm working myself into a frenzy for no reason other than letting myself get distracted...again.
July 13, 2012
Recent Recipe
Mini Deep-Dish Pizzas
The first thing we found out was that the dough expands. We thought we were going to make cute little pizza bowls in muffin cups. Instead, because we cooked the dough a little before adding the ingredients, it ended up as thick, giant crusts with the toppings pouring over the top. What we would most likely do differently is just put a little dough in the bottom of each cup, just enough to cover the bottom, and then stack the toppings without worrying about making a little bowl. Because I decided to bake them in foil muffin cups it would be easy to just peel the foil away (it was easy) and the cheese would probably keep the shape of the pizza intact.
I bought pesto and kapers to go on my pizzas. I love kapers, but I wasn't expecting the severe overload of vinegar taste these kapers were sporting (they actually tasted - long after I was finished eating them - like alcohol). I bought green onions to go on my mom's pizzas and black olives for my sister. My father is very plain - just pepperoni please. But lots of it. All in all, though, it was a nice change from freakin' pork chops and green beans every night.
The first thing we found out was that the dough expands. We thought we were going to make cute little pizza bowls in muffin cups. Instead, because we cooked the dough a little before adding the ingredients, it ended up as thick, giant crusts with the toppings pouring over the top. What we would most likely do differently is just put a little dough in the bottom of each cup, just enough to cover the bottom, and then stack the toppings without worrying about making a little bowl. Because I decided to bake them in foil muffin cups it would be easy to just peel the foil away (it was easy) and the cheese would probably keep the shape of the pizza intact.
I bought pesto and kapers to go on my pizzas. I love kapers, but I wasn't expecting the severe overload of vinegar taste these kapers were sporting (they actually tasted - long after I was finished eating them - like alcohol). I bought green onions to go on my mom's pizzas and black olives for my sister. My father is very plain - just pepperoni please. But lots of it. All in all, though, it was a nice change from freakin' pork chops and green beans every night.
July 9, 2012
Four More...Kids?
Without asking anyone in our house if it was okay, my sister decided to babysit four kids five days a week. They are all under the age of ten. They come sometime before six in the morning and stay until around three in the afternoon. They are three boys and a girl. They seem well behaved enough, but we have to feed them and, today, my sister decided to schedule an appointment and, without telling anyone, left the four kids sleeping in our living room.
She has been watching them for three weeks now and has not been paid. Their mother, my sister's coworker, couldn't afford daycare and needed somewhere to take her children for the summer so my sister, who is on hiatus pending an operation on her foot, offered to watch them for a reduced rate of $25 a day. Their mother keeps telling my sister that she just doesn't have the money, that the next paycheck will be better and then she will pay her...but of course the amount keeps adding up and how, if her paychecks aren't enough for $125, are they going to be enough for $375? It's going to create an awkward situation when my sister has to demand the money or refuse to watch the children...and then return to work with this woman with all the bad feelings there will be between them.
And these children use dishes. Cups and plates and silverware and pots to cook their hotdogs and whatever. Today, while I was spooning yesterday's Mexican leftovers onto a plate, excited because it's been a loooonnggg time since I've had this particular favored breakfast, my mother asked me if a coffee cup amongst the other dishes was the one I used yesterday. She told me that I needed to wash that coffee cup because my sister is tired of having to do my dishes (as you know, this is a regular fight). I went to put it in the dishwasher, but it was full of clean dishes. Could I have cleaned the dishwasher out? Sure. But laying around half-naked doing nothing was my nephew and his girlfriend, neither of whom have a job or do any sort of chore. (My nephew's exact words earlier this year: "I've never had to do chores and I ain't about to start.")
I washed my four dishes while being glared at by my nephew's girlfriend because she wanted to get coffee but the coffee pot is next to the sink and I was blocking it.
See, the problem isn't that I am not willing to clean up after myself. It's the fact that my sister is willing to help everyone but me. I go to work and I pay part of the bills (she doesn't do either of those things right now) and I dirty all of maybe five dishes. I know I harp on this a lot but it's such a sore point. Today, as she was walking out the door to get in a car and have my father drive her to her appointment, she said, "I'm late to my appointment because we have to take 'Stupid' to work." Who's 'Stupid'? My niece, and my sister is angry because my niece lost her driver's license for not having insurance. It is suspended for three years. Why, you ask, was my father driving my sister to her appointment? Because a few years ago she lost her license over unpaid tickets.
By the way, my sister's appointment was at 10:30 and 'Stupid' didn't have to be at work until 11:00. My father was going to take my sister to her appointment and then swing by to get 'Stupid' and take her to work. How the hell did 'Stupid' make my sister late in any way?
So right now, my mother is watching the four kids. My nephew is playing with them but eventually he will lose interest and want to play video games on the internet (which I pay for) or whine about how he wants to watch TV (which I pay for) and he can't because the kids are watching cartoons. For the record...he will probably want to watch cartoons.
She has been watching them for three weeks now and has not been paid. Their mother, my sister's coworker, couldn't afford daycare and needed somewhere to take her children for the summer so my sister, who is on hiatus pending an operation on her foot, offered to watch them for a reduced rate of $25 a day. Their mother keeps telling my sister that she just doesn't have the money, that the next paycheck will be better and then she will pay her...but of course the amount keeps adding up and how, if her paychecks aren't enough for $125, are they going to be enough for $375? It's going to create an awkward situation when my sister has to demand the money or refuse to watch the children...and then return to work with this woman with all the bad feelings there will be between them.
And these children use dishes. Cups and plates and silverware and pots to cook their hotdogs and whatever. Today, while I was spooning yesterday's Mexican leftovers onto a plate, excited because it's been a loooonnggg time since I've had this particular favored breakfast, my mother asked me if a coffee cup amongst the other dishes was the one I used yesterday. She told me that I needed to wash that coffee cup because my sister is tired of having to do my dishes (as you know, this is a regular fight). I went to put it in the dishwasher, but it was full of clean dishes. Could I have cleaned the dishwasher out? Sure. But laying around half-naked doing nothing was my nephew and his girlfriend, neither of whom have a job or do any sort of chore. (My nephew's exact words earlier this year: "I've never had to do chores and I ain't about to start.")
I washed my four dishes while being glared at by my nephew's girlfriend because she wanted to get coffee but the coffee pot is next to the sink and I was blocking it.
See, the problem isn't that I am not willing to clean up after myself. It's the fact that my sister is willing to help everyone but me. I go to work and I pay part of the bills (she doesn't do either of those things right now) and I dirty all of maybe five dishes. I know I harp on this a lot but it's such a sore point. Today, as she was walking out the door to get in a car and have my father drive her to her appointment, she said, "I'm late to my appointment because we have to take 'Stupid' to work." Who's 'Stupid'? My niece, and my sister is angry because my niece lost her driver's license for not having insurance. It is suspended for three years. Why, you ask, was my father driving my sister to her appointment? Because a few years ago she lost her license over unpaid tickets.
By the way, my sister's appointment was at 10:30 and 'Stupid' didn't have to be at work until 11:00. My father was going to take my sister to her appointment and then swing by to get 'Stupid' and take her to work. How the hell did 'Stupid' make my sister late in any way?
So right now, my mother is watching the four kids. My nephew is playing with them but eventually he will lose interest and want to play video games on the internet (which I pay for) or whine about how he wants to watch TV (which I pay for) and he can't because the kids are watching cartoons. For the record...he will probably want to watch cartoons.
June 18, 2012
How the Breakfast Went
Baked Eggs in Tomatoes
Of course, it didn't go as smoothly as the recipe made it sound. It took over an hour to get the eggs to cook. We also decided that instead of mixing the insides of the tomatoes into the eggs we would just drop a whole egg down into the hollowed tomato, then put some cheese and other things on top of that. Or put those things down in and then put an egg on top. That might work out best because then we can judge whether the egg has cooked or not. The problem with the insides of the tomatoes was they caused the whole thing to be too watery and the eggs didn't appear cooked. We could save the tomato innards for chilli or pasta sauce.
Of course, it didn't go as smoothly as the recipe made it sound. It took over an hour to get the eggs to cook. We also decided that instead of mixing the insides of the tomatoes into the eggs we would just drop a whole egg down into the hollowed tomato, then put some cheese and other things on top of that. Or put those things down in and then put an egg on top. That might work out best because then we can judge whether the egg has cooked or not. The problem with the insides of the tomatoes was they caused the whole thing to be too watery and the eggs didn't appear cooked. We could save the tomato innards for chilli or pasta sauce.
June 14, 2012
Living for Me
This weekend, I bought a new refrigerator to go in my bedroom. It's 3.2 cubic-inches and holds about three times as much food as my previous fridge. My plan was to feed myself. I'm quite tired of feeding five lazy people. I don't mind feeding my parents - they pay almost all of the utilities and the rent and, besides, they fed me. But every time I go to the grocery store and buy food, it will be eaten within twenty-four hours. Last weekend my mother bought a pack of twenty Hot Pockets and it was gone by that evening. I can't afford this any more. A few weeks ago we came downstairs to breakfast to find my nephew making four subs - two for himself, one for his girlfriend, and one for the kid who slept over the night before.
It's not like we can designate food to people, either. If my mother buys herself ice cream and tells those people not to eat it because she's treating herself, she better buy a serving she can eat in one sitting because as soon as she goes to bed they are going to eat that ice cream behind her back. I can't stock up on frozen meals to take to work either because even if I write my name on them in permanent marker they will eat them. (Or they will microwave them, I will catch them, they will get angry that I'm angry, and they will throw it away saying, "Fine, I won't eat your stupid dinner then.") Today my father went to get some leftover chilli and when he opened the container someone (read: my nephew) had decided they didn't want to scoop out a serving into a bowl so they put crackers in the container and then decided they didn't want it anymore, so they just put the lid back on it and walked away. It was a mushy, disgusting mess and an incredible waste.
I think I've mentioned this before, but I also can't buy food I want to eat because I have to worry about portions that will feed eight people. I have to buy chicken legs, macaroni and cheese, baked beans, five-pound-packages of hamburger, spaghetti (yuck), white bread, American cheese, tater tots, ground steak patties - this is a weekly list. We eat those things freaking weekly. And they must be in constant supply. I just can't take it.
So tonight, I went to the store and spent way more money than I had intended to fill the new fridge. But I bought things I want to eat. I bought bacon-flavored cheese-filled mushrooms, salsa, tortilla chips, gouda cheese, salami, and two kinds of hummus. I've decided that every paycheck I will buy the ingredients for a recipe, starting with recipes from Martha Stewart's Food Magazine.
This week's special: Baked Eggs in Tomatoes.
I will substitute feta cheese for the parmesan, though, because I only like parmesan on pizza, as a substitute for mozzerella (not my favorite).
I'm tired of being so unhappy. I know they're mad that I've been splurging on myself lately but you know the drill. Fuck 'em. They're selfish bastards and they're breeding a selfish bitch in me.
It's not like we can designate food to people, either. If my mother buys herself ice cream and tells those people not to eat it because she's treating herself, she better buy a serving she can eat in one sitting because as soon as she goes to bed they are going to eat that ice cream behind her back. I can't stock up on frozen meals to take to work either because even if I write my name on them in permanent marker they will eat them. (Or they will microwave them, I will catch them, they will get angry that I'm angry, and they will throw it away saying, "Fine, I won't eat your stupid dinner then.") Today my father went to get some leftover chilli and when he opened the container someone (read: my nephew) had decided they didn't want to scoop out a serving into a bowl so they put crackers in the container and then decided they didn't want it anymore, so they just put the lid back on it and walked away. It was a mushy, disgusting mess and an incredible waste.
I think I've mentioned this before, but I also can't buy food I want to eat because I have to worry about portions that will feed eight people. I have to buy chicken legs, macaroni and cheese, baked beans, five-pound-packages of hamburger, spaghetti (yuck), white bread, American cheese, tater tots, ground steak patties - this is a weekly list. We eat those things freaking weekly. And they must be in constant supply. I just can't take it.
So tonight, I went to the store and spent way more money than I had intended to fill the new fridge. But I bought things I want to eat. I bought bacon-flavored cheese-filled mushrooms, salsa, tortilla chips, gouda cheese, salami, and two kinds of hummus. I've decided that every paycheck I will buy the ingredients for a recipe, starting with recipes from Martha Stewart's Food Magazine.
This week's special: Baked Eggs in Tomatoes.
I will substitute feta cheese for the parmesan, though, because I only like parmesan on pizza, as a substitute for mozzerella (not my favorite).
I'm tired of being so unhappy. I know they're mad that I've been splurging on myself lately but you know the drill. Fuck 'em. They're selfish bastards and they're breeding a selfish bitch in me.
June 7, 2012
Ownership
I am so upset right now. I came home from a crappy day at work to find that my parents, because they couldn't get the internet on my little netbook for a few hours, decided that the problem was the computer needed a complete system restore. My father - when my mother told him my sister had deleted some games that had been downloaded (without permission), had cleaned and defragmented the hard drive, and nothing had worked - told my mother that he could get the internet back for her. So, she handed him the machine and he did a system restore.
He lost everything I had saved on that computer. He lost files from when I was teaching. He lost stories I had started. He lost pictures we had taken of my sister-in-law's mother before she died.
The worst part? Remember my post a few weeks back about apologizing? He's angry at me for getting angry because HE DOES SYSTEM RESTORES ALL THE TIME on his computer and it's fine. It's how he gets the internet back if it isn't working for a few hours. EVERY TIME THE INTERNET IS DOWN HE DOES A COMPLETE, BACK-TO-FACTORY-SETTINGS RESTORE.
He said the computer should have backed up the files automatically. I said it doesn't do that. He YELLED at me that he didn't say it did, HE SAID IT SHOULD. Because his does. I told him that's because he has Windows 7 and my netbook only has Windows XP. Did he apologize? No. He just kept repeating that he couldn't have known my computer was different than his. I said he shouldn't have been messing with something that didn't belong to him - especially something that cost as much as that netbook.
I would have been home a few hours later. Why couldn't they live without the internet for a few hours? All I needed to do was start the wireless internet service and go to the advanced settings to let Windows reconfigure the wireless signals. I also pushed my sister for more information on whether she did a defragmentation (which would have taken hours) and she admitted she didn't, because the analysis said she didn't need to. I said really it had needed it and I had just been planning this morning to do a defragmentation when I got home. She just shrugged her shoulders.
This after another day where I was the bad person for getting frustrated when my boss interrupted me at work. Often, she starts talking to me as soon as I walk in the door. I can't even put my purse down, or take off my jacket in cold weather. Today she followed me to the back room and started talking at me about what we were going to do for the day, and I started a sentence and she interrupted me. I listened to what she said, waited for her to be done talking, waited a beat, started my sentence again, and she interrupted me again. This time I showed frustration, I think by pursing my lips, and she saw my face and asked if I was mad that she interrupted me. Instead of answering I just, for a third time, said what I was trying to say and when I was done she just kind of said, "Oh," and walked away and wouldn't talk to me for a while. I know she's going to say something about how I need to remember our talk about showing patience because interrupting is now a common behavior and I need to understand that I look egotistical when I "can't stand it" that someone has interrupted me. Except I think it's awfully convenient for her that she gets to excuse her rude behavior and I'm going to be held accountable for feeling frustrated. She has said that because she doesn't mean to interrupt me, that because she just thinks of something she wants to say and doesn't want to forget it, that that's different than interrupting someone maliciously. It's not. Why is her thought that needs to be expressed more important than the other person's thought that needs to be expressed? That's how she makes me feel - like I'm less important than she is. The whole day I made a point - a clear point - of not speaking when she was speaking, of looking her straight in the eye and nodding in the appropriate places. I doubt she'll pick up on the message, though.
So now, when I thought I was going to get home from work a little early and get to relax a little longer, instead I've already been yelled at and I've already spent forty minutes typing this stupid post. I'll probably end up just crawling into bed.
He lost everything I had saved on that computer. He lost files from when I was teaching. He lost stories I had started. He lost pictures we had taken of my sister-in-law's mother before she died.
The worst part? Remember my post a few weeks back about apologizing? He's angry at me for getting angry because HE DOES SYSTEM RESTORES ALL THE TIME on his computer and it's fine. It's how he gets the internet back if it isn't working for a few hours. EVERY TIME THE INTERNET IS DOWN HE DOES A COMPLETE, BACK-TO-FACTORY-SETTINGS RESTORE.
He said the computer should have backed up the files automatically. I said it doesn't do that. He YELLED at me that he didn't say it did, HE SAID IT SHOULD. Because his does. I told him that's because he has Windows 7 and my netbook only has Windows XP. Did he apologize? No. He just kept repeating that he couldn't have known my computer was different than his. I said he shouldn't have been messing with something that didn't belong to him - especially something that cost as much as that netbook.
I would have been home a few hours later. Why couldn't they live without the internet for a few hours? All I needed to do was start the wireless internet service and go to the advanced settings to let Windows reconfigure the wireless signals. I also pushed my sister for more information on whether she did a defragmentation (which would have taken hours) and she admitted she didn't, because the analysis said she didn't need to. I said really it had needed it and I had just been planning this morning to do a defragmentation when I got home. She just shrugged her shoulders.
This after another day where I was the bad person for getting frustrated when my boss interrupted me at work. Often, she starts talking to me as soon as I walk in the door. I can't even put my purse down, or take off my jacket in cold weather. Today she followed me to the back room and started talking at me about what we were going to do for the day, and I started a sentence and she interrupted me. I listened to what she said, waited for her to be done talking, waited a beat, started my sentence again, and she interrupted me again. This time I showed frustration, I think by pursing my lips, and she saw my face and asked if I was mad that she interrupted me. Instead of answering I just, for a third time, said what I was trying to say and when I was done she just kind of said, "Oh," and walked away and wouldn't talk to me for a while. I know she's going to say something about how I need to remember our talk about showing patience because interrupting is now a common behavior and I need to understand that I look egotistical when I "can't stand it" that someone has interrupted me. Except I think it's awfully convenient for her that she gets to excuse her rude behavior and I'm going to be held accountable for feeling frustrated. She has said that because she doesn't mean to interrupt me, that because she just thinks of something she wants to say and doesn't want to forget it, that that's different than interrupting someone maliciously. It's not. Why is her thought that needs to be expressed more important than the other person's thought that needs to be expressed? That's how she makes me feel - like I'm less important than she is. The whole day I made a point - a clear point - of not speaking when she was speaking, of looking her straight in the eye and nodding in the appropriate places. I doubt she'll pick up on the message, though.
So now, when I thought I was going to get home from work a little early and get to relax a little longer, instead I've already been yelled at and I've already spent forty minutes typing this stupid post. I'll probably end up just crawling into bed.
June 6, 2012
Random Spewing
A) My sister no longer has a job. She injured her foot falling down the basement steps and now needs surgery. Her workplace will not permit her a leave of absence and will not promise to hold her job for when she returns in, tentatively, two months. Fine, she can't help any of that. It isn't her fault she fell down those stairs (I've done it twice). But it has been a week-and-a-half since she went to work and she has complained about having to do things around the house for those of us who do have jobs. Right now I work five days a week - all long shifts. The only other person who has a job is my nephew's girlfriend. Out of eight people, my parents get retirement checks but don't have to be anywhere, neither of my nephews have school because one is online-schooled and one is twenty-five, and the other girlfriend just graduated from school and for the past year only had to be at school for two hours a day. And you know what happened today? My mother told me to make sure I always washed my own dishes because my sister said she wasn't going to wash my dishes. Fuck her. She isn't in so much pain she can't do things - she's just fine when she has to go to the tobacco store to get cigarettes rolled or when she goes to spend her $400 support check on junk at Wal-Mart. I do my own laundry, take care of the phone/cable/internet bill, handle the repairs on the car and put in most of the gas, and buy food that gets eaten within twenty-four hours. Why can't she wash my, maybe, five dishes I dirty a day? I usually only eat breakfast and only two or three days a week any other meal, so it's often not even five dishes. And we have a dishwasher which I normally put my own dishes in. Why does she get to lay around doing nothing, and her children get to lay around doing nothing, leeching off of my paycheck but refusing to do anything for me? FUCK.
B) I'm reading The Beekeeper's Apprentice. I hope it gets better because I want to slap the narrator, Mary Russell, upside the head. She's egotistical and pretentious. I know it's because in the beginning she's a fifteen-year-old girl but that doesn't excuse her tone of voice because a fifteen-year-old girl is not narrating this story. An adult looking back is narrating. I'm hoping I'll love the book and her once it becomes more of a mystery, once the Sherlock Holmes inspiration kicks in a little. But once again, I'm disappointed in a book I've looked forward to for a long time.
C) I've made a decision based on this: now that I have to support said sister above even more than I did before, I won't have very much extra money and so I'm going to have to just rely on random books from the library. I used to go to the library with all my lists of books and try to find specific books but that's beginning to prove more frustrating because I often end up hating the books I was previously excited by. So I think I'll try random books again. I've said before, I think, that I used to pull five random books in a row (well, technically I would pull five random authors in a row) from the shelf and out of those, it would be an even bet that one would be awful, three would be mediocre, and one would be excellent. That's how I stumbled upon The Descent - a book that is so much more intelligent than that horrible movie supposedly based on it - and The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye. It's how I found Memoirs of a Geisha before it became a reknowned movie and it's how I read Tom Arnold's autobiography, which is surprisingly funny and interesting. The thing about it is that if I'm disappointed I won't have wasted money. It sounds to me like a lot of people are rediscovering the beauty of libraries for various reasons, and this is mine.
B) I'm reading The Beekeeper's Apprentice. I hope it gets better because I want to slap the narrator, Mary Russell, upside the head. She's egotistical and pretentious. I know it's because in the beginning she's a fifteen-year-old girl but that doesn't excuse her tone of voice because a fifteen-year-old girl is not narrating this story. An adult looking back is narrating. I'm hoping I'll love the book and her once it becomes more of a mystery, once the Sherlock Holmes inspiration kicks in a little. But once again, I'm disappointed in a book I've looked forward to for a long time.
C) I've made a decision based on this: now that I have to support said sister above even more than I did before, I won't have very much extra money and so I'm going to have to just rely on random books from the library. I used to go to the library with all my lists of books and try to find specific books but that's beginning to prove more frustrating because I often end up hating the books I was previously excited by. So I think I'll try random books again. I've said before, I think, that I used to pull five random books in a row (well, technically I would pull five random authors in a row) from the shelf and out of those, it would be an even bet that one would be awful, three would be mediocre, and one would be excellent. That's how I stumbled upon The Descent - a book that is so much more intelligent than that horrible movie supposedly based on it - and The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye. It's how I found Memoirs of a Geisha before it became a reknowned movie and it's how I read Tom Arnold's autobiography, which is surprisingly funny and interesting. The thing about it is that if I'm disappointed I won't have wasted money. It sounds to me like a lot of people are rediscovering the beauty of libraries for various reasons, and this is mine.
May 31, 2012
Some Things Are Better on Paper
I had an idea one day that during the times I was wasting my life playing video games on my computer I would, instead of listening to the various sounds the game produced, listen to a book on tape. I can mute specific programs (and I have a six-core computer, so it can handle multiple programs). I now digitally download the games so I don't need a disc, and most of the downloads are cheaper than their CD counterparts. It actually works out pretty well.
A friend, whom I told about this plan, asked me if I would be able to concentrate on the story while playing the video game. I responded with several points. First, the games I play on the computer don't require much thought. I play mostly The Sims and the characters can relatively take care of themselves. Second, my attention can't be that much worse than someone who listens to books-on-CD while they're driving. I can pause my game if I feel the need to listen more carefully to the book. I can't (or wouldn't) pull over to listen in the car. Third, even when I'm reading if I feel my attention slipping I would probably realize after a few pages that I had no idea what just happened in the story. So it isn't any different than a normal reading session. Last, it beats listening to the jibber-jabber of the invented 'simlish' language.
And while it's great for books like Mark Twain or short story collections or the like, today I started listening to a "masterpiece of literature" that is supposed to be stark, real ... naked if you will. It is titled Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs.
I'm sure it's brilliant. I'm sure it's ground-breaking. It sure is stark. But it isn't a book you listen to when your seven-year-old niece is running past your bedroom and she might catch the narrator describing torture techniques involving a sheep shoved up someone's asshole. You read that correctly - if I heard it correctly, that is. And I think I did hear that correctly. I've actually never heard the word 'fag' used so much in my life, and I grew up in middle-America. There's no story. The book, at least so far, is a string of instances in the narrator's life - a life of drug abuse, murder, torture, and horrible deaths. I don't understand what's going on but that's because it isn't linear nor really a story as far as I can tell. It paints a picture of a time and place, of a culture, a drug culture. I'm sure it was a pioneer for being so brave and raw.
The voice actor used to narrate did a bang-up job. He sounds like every redneck I've ever met, and he adopts a new persona for every new character, which means about once every five minutes. And he doesn't hold back on being very stereotypical for those characters, either. A Hispanic woman? Let's make her sound stupid and a little bit crazy. A cop? Let's make him sound mean and a little bit nerdy. A 'fag'? Let's not even give him a voice but describe how thrilling it was to watch him get murdered by a drug-addled vigilante.
I'm not sure why it's considered so brilliant. I suppose it's the same confusion I find with the beat poets. I'm just not that interested in drug culture. During the book's time period (published in 1959) this kind of naked truth about the horrors of the world was unheard of. So I guess I can respect the book for being honest and daring? I mean, sure I can. But I think I'll try, at a later date, to respect it on paper.
A friend, whom I told about this plan, asked me if I would be able to concentrate on the story while playing the video game. I responded with several points. First, the games I play on the computer don't require much thought. I play mostly The Sims and the characters can relatively take care of themselves. Second, my attention can't be that much worse than someone who listens to books-on-CD while they're driving. I can pause my game if I feel the need to listen more carefully to the book. I can't (or wouldn't) pull over to listen in the car. Third, even when I'm reading if I feel my attention slipping I would probably realize after a few pages that I had no idea what just happened in the story. So it isn't any different than a normal reading session. Last, it beats listening to the jibber-jabber of the invented 'simlish' language.
And while it's great for books like Mark Twain or short story collections or the like, today I started listening to a "masterpiece of literature" that is supposed to be stark, real ... naked if you will. It is titled Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs.
I'm sure it's brilliant. I'm sure it's ground-breaking. It sure is stark. But it isn't a book you listen to when your seven-year-old niece is running past your bedroom and she might catch the narrator describing torture techniques involving a sheep shoved up someone's asshole. You read that correctly - if I heard it correctly, that is. And I think I did hear that correctly. I've actually never heard the word 'fag' used so much in my life, and I grew up in middle-America. There's no story. The book, at least so far, is a string of instances in the narrator's life - a life of drug abuse, murder, torture, and horrible deaths. I don't understand what's going on but that's because it isn't linear nor really a story as far as I can tell. It paints a picture of a time and place, of a culture, a drug culture. I'm sure it was a pioneer for being so brave and raw.
The voice actor used to narrate did a bang-up job. He sounds like every redneck I've ever met, and he adopts a new persona for every new character, which means about once every five minutes. And he doesn't hold back on being very stereotypical for those characters, either. A Hispanic woman? Let's make her sound stupid and a little bit crazy. A cop? Let's make him sound mean and a little bit nerdy. A 'fag'? Let's not even give him a voice but describe how thrilling it was to watch him get murdered by a drug-addled vigilante.
I'm not sure why it's considered so brilliant. I suppose it's the same confusion I find with the beat poets. I'm just not that interested in drug culture. During the book's time period (published in 1959) this kind of naked truth about the horrors of the world was unheard of. So I guess I can respect the book for being honest and daring? I mean, sure I can. But I think I'll try, at a later date, to respect it on paper.
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